


and all dishevelled wandering stars

by Kells



Series: gifts, requests, and other little bits [13]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, Female Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-18 14:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 29,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5931868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He’s my best friend, Tony, okay? That’s it; that’s all- the sorting hat never had a say in any of it, and neither do you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. fourth year

“And just what is _he_ doing here?”  

Stephanie took a deep, cleansing breath and tried to focus on the not-even-reluctant wave Bucky had offered when she'd spotted him so that she wouldn’t end up having to take points from herself for hexing Tony’s eyebrows off right there on the Quidditch pitch. He’d probably fight back, anyway, and then Bucky would get involved, and if the resulting suspension of both keeper and vice-captain cost Gryffindor the win that weekend Carter would give all three of them detention until they were thirty.

“I asked him to come.”

They were doing new drills, and Steph was becoming increasingly sure that she flew distinctly better when Bucky was in the stands. Tony looked at her like she’d just announced that she was hoping Professor Lehnsherr would be the first to ask her to dance at the Yule Ball.

“You _asked_ him to come?”

“Sure,” she shrugged, trying to sound casual rather than defensive. “It’s not a closed session. What’s he going to do, sell our secrets to Hufflepuff?”

Tony didn’t even crack a smile.

“He’s still Slytherin, Rogers.”

Stephanie sighed.

“This again. It’s a house, not a communicable disease.”

Tony’s scowl only deepened.

“That’s debatable. Look, Steph-“

“No,” Steph decided. It always took some doing to get Bucky out of the lab or the library, especially without Tasha, and she wasn’t about to let Tony give him another reason to stay away. “You look. He’s my best friend, okay? That’s it; that’s all- the sorting hat never had a say in any of it, and neither do you. If you’re going to make this a bigger deal than it needs to be you can find another Keeper.”

She wasn’t prepared for the flash of hurt that crossed Tony’s face before he turned away abruptly.

“Fine,” he muttered, swinging a leg over his broom in jerky, still-angry movements. “On your own head be it, Rogers.”

He shot into the air before Steph had a chance to react. She watched him go, reluctantly admiring the skill and experience with which Tony navigated the sharp turns and steep drops of the training course he had designed himself.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Bucky was on his feet now, the book he’d brought with him already tucked away in his satchel. His smile were warm, but his posture was rigid with discomfort. “I can go. You’ll tell me about it after anyway. I’ll still come to the game.”

Steph let her broom drift over, then hopped off a couple of feet away. 

“Are you really gonna walk out on me because Tony Stark pitched a fit?”

Bucky moved to meet her, reaching for her hands before seeming to realize where they were and who was watching. His hands fell limp at his sides, as awkward as the rest of him.

“It's not that. Steph-“

“Bucky-“

“Rogers!”

Carol Danvers, leader and commander of the Gryffindor team, was glowering at the pair of them with enough energy to set the pitch on fire. “Get that civilian off my field before I set a bludger on the pair of you.”

When Steph turned to apologise- again- for her teammates, she found Bucky smirking faintly.

“She does know this isn’t an army, right?”

Steph shrugged helplessly.

“Jury’s still out. Listen, I have to-“

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, pulling away. “Sure, go do your thing.”

“Stay, okay?”

He didn’t look sure at all.

“You shouldn’t have to fight your own team for me.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone I wouldn’t fight for you.”

It wasn’t what Steph had planned on saying, but as she and Bucky both froze she realized she meant every word, and was perfectly happy for him to know it. Bucky nodded after a second, so solemnly that it was hard to doubt that he was answering for more than the duration of Quidditch practice.

“Then I’ll be here as long’s you want me.”

For a moment Steph was sorely tempted to lean up and kiss him right on the mouth, school gossip be damned right along with house loyalties, but if their first kiss left them seeing stars she didn’t really want it to be because of Captain Danvers’ bludgers.  

“If you really mean that you should know you’re gonna grow old on this field, Bucky Barnes.”

Stephanie kicked off when Carol’s whistle shrieked her cue, letting Bucky's shy, startled laughter lift her higher as she went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like maybe we knew this was coming at some point…  
> could just stay a fragment like this, but could also probably sustain quite a long and complicated plot that is sort of snape/lily in its undertones except not so tragically unrequited. hmmmm. 
> 
> also, some notes on the pairings in this fic:  
> 1\. I only really write one pairing, so this is S&J all the way through.  
> 2\. It's also kind of Steph/Tony, in that in this one I think they both think it could have happened in a some-other-life kind of way, so there's that.  
> 3\. I also super <3 Clint/Tasha and sometimes secretly Peggy/Howard (but mostly in that I like Bucky to secretly ship it and Steph to sigh long-sufferingly) but somehow I don't think those are going to happen here.


	2. fifth year

Tony grinned as he caught sight of Steph Rogers from the Owlery window. She was dipping and weaving between the hoops, bright against the stormy sky in the unmistakable Gryffindor red of her keeper’s uniform. If he timed things right, they could walk back to the tower together. Tony hoped that the fact that the other prefects were already on their rounds wouldn’t be the only reason Steph agreed to go with him, but thought he could live with it if it was- these days, any time with her that didn’t involve Barnes and Romanova breathing down their necks was an opportunity worth seizing with both hands. Nodding decisively, he gave his father’s familiar a final affectionate scratch.

“Wish me luck, Morgana!”

The eagle owl hooted agreeably, returning to her preening as Tony took the stairs at a jog. Stephanie was still in the air when he reached the pitch, practicing one of her new moves over and over again with the singular focus she brought to everything she thought worth doing. Tony reached for his wand, hoping to impress her with a warming spell they’d never teach at school, but froze instead at the sound of the one voice he was starting to resent above all others.

“Steph! What’re you still doing out? You’ll catch your death in this rain.”

Barnes was approaching on a perpendicular path to Tony’s, throwing his voice with an amplifying charm Tony didn’t recognize. He tried not to react to the way Steph’s face lit up at the sight of her friend. She turned so sharply that Tony took an involuntary step forward as if he might have to stop her falling, but of course Carol’s star keeper was more than capable of handling herself on a broom- she reached the ground just feet away from Barnes.

“Says you. How’d you get way out here?”

Of course she knew his patrol route- they did it together whenever Steph wasn’t at training. Barnes waved her off as though he often traversed the Quidditch pitch after dark just for fun.

“Got done with Richards, saw the sky, thought maybe you might need me.”

Tony tried not to throw up in his mouth. Barnes reached for his wand, but held it out invitingly instead of casting the expected charms.

“Or your wand, at least. One or the other.”

“Oh!” Steph took her wand back eagerly, turning it over in her hands as if close inspection might reveal what Barnes had been doing with it. Her voice was alive with curiosity.

“I forgot you still had it. Did it work better than your one?”

“A bit,” he nodded thoughtfully. “I think the ash calms the rest of it down, or something. You should’ve taken mine like I said.”

Stephanie laughed even as the chasm in Tony’s stomach widened and dropped at the realization that the other two made a habit of using each other’s wands- his parents had been married more than twenty years, and Howard still kept his wand in a personal holster rather than afford Maria _that_ kind of intimacy.

“Is that your scientific opinion, Professor B? It ‘calms the rest of it down’?”

“Or something,” Barnes returned with dignity. He relieved Steph of her broom as if she were some kind of damsel incapable of dragging a branch across a field. “Let’s go, woman, you’re wet through.”

“I’ll live,” Steph retorted, snatching her broom back right away- which made Tony grin until he realized that Steph’s smile was as close to flirtatious as he had ever seen it. “If I’d had your wand you wouldn’t have come rushing out here to see me home, now, would you?”

Barnes looked genuinely impressed. Tony really, really wanted to hit him.

“Clever wretch. Does Carter know you’re secretly a Slytherin?”

She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re not gonna tell on me, are you?”

Barnes raised the arm he hadn’t slung around Steph’s waist so that his fingers could wrap around hers on the handle of her broom.

“Only if you want to spend the rest of your life with a coffee pot or backscratcher or whatever it is she turns me into for maligning her golden girl.”

Stephanie laughed, bright and carefree. She hadn’t even noticed the way he’d slipped that ‘rest of your life’ in there, or she had and didn’t see any reason to object. Tony felt sick.

“Poor Bucky. I promise I’d make her change you back if she tried that.”

If they’d been standing any closer they would have been nose to nose- the slimy snake was grinning only inches away from Stephanie’s lips.

“Thanks.”

The hand that had been on Barnes’s shoulder rose to sweep his hair out of his eyes.

“’Course. C’mon, I want to get hot chocolate before you have to go.”

Barnes laughed.

“Let’s go get hot chocolate, then.”

Before Tony knew it they were kissing, soft and sweet even in the downpour neither of them had so much as raised a shield against. He watched, knowing he shouldn’t but so far past the point of decency or discretion that there was very little he could do but stand there, gaping at the sight of the first thing he’d ever really wanted that he might not be able to buy.


	3. sixth year

“Shit,” Clint muttered, attention arrested by a struggle in the distance. “C’mon, we have to go.”

He took off running, trusting his friends to follow. They reached the clearing just as Arnim Zola’s goons let Barnes drop heavily to the ground. Bruce, catching on first, grabbed hold of Tony and Clint and dragged back until all three were safely hidden from view.

“James,” the Slytherin seventh-year fairly purred. “I’m so glad you could join us.”

Barnes answered in a low growl- it was the first time Clint had ever heard him sound like a real Slytherin rather than some misplaced Ravenclaw who’d got trapped down in the dungeons after curfew.

“To what do I owe the honour, _Arnim_?”

Behind Clint, Tony drew in a sharp breath at the heavy booted kick that followed.

“Boys,” Zola said sharply; the goons withdrew at once. Barnes’ expression barely faltered. “We’re here to extend an invitation.”

“Not interested,” Barnes muttered. Zola’s smile made Clint want to take several scalding showers.

“I think you will be.”

He gave what must have passed for a casual shrug in the most inbred parts of high society. “I wouldn’t want the lovely Miss Romanova to be all on her own in our little den of snakes.”

By this time, Barnes had staggered to his feet.

“What the hell do you people want from me?”

The Gryffindors exchanged a helpless look- they had to help, obviously, but they didn’t have the first idea of how to go about it- they would be three against five, since it was painfully unlikely that they’d let Barnes keep his wand, and even at their best Clint wasn’t sure his friends could take on that many final-year opponents and win.

“Go,” Tony muttered at Bruce, jerking his head towards the castle. “We’ll make sure they don’t, you know-“

Clint wasn’t sure even Tony knew what he meant, precisely, but Bruce seemed to agree that there was no better plan. He went as quietly as he could go, leaving Clint and Tony to listen in useless bewilderment as Zola explained the details of some pureblood shindig that Barnes was to attend, _or else._

“Or else what, exactly?”

Clint smirked in spite of himself- he’d probably have said the same thing exactly in Barnes’s position. Zola gave another unpleasant grin.

“Let's just say the Master may decide he’d like to see for himself what you find so appealing about the mudblood whore you keep turning him down for.”

The colour drained from Barnes’s face as Clint watched Tony’s hands seize into angry fists.

“You leave her out of this.”

Zola patted Barnes on the shoulder, proprietary in his condescension.

“That’s very much up to you, James. We’ll see you at seven o’clock, sharp.”

They took themselves away in several loud cracks, leaving James on his feet but shaking with exertion; Tony had just opened his mouth to give away their position when Stephanie appeared in front of them. She dragged her boyfriend into a terrified embrace, murmuring assurances only Barnes could hear. He flinched at the next two cracks, but it was only Bruce and Tasha. The former offered the his friends a tired wave, and they stood there in awkward, confused silence while Tasha, too, threw her arms around the other Slytherin. Tony Stark, of course, could only stand by for so long while someone else was the centre of attention.

“Is Zola a Death Eater?”

Clint clenched his jaw around a shout of protest. Of course he wasn't: those crazy radicals were few and far between, and they certainly couldn’t be at Hogwarts already- except Barnes was already nodding, his expression now more exhausted than anything else, and Steph looked so resigned that Clint knew every possible objection had already been tried and found inadequate. Tony took another step forward, words tumbling from his mouth as his eyes took on the fanatical gleam that accompanied his more brilliant leaps of logic.

“And they’re trying to recruit you- why you?”

“Because he’s brilliant,” Steph murmured, one hand still tangled in Barnes’s hair. Clint saw Tony wrench his eyes away with an effort, shaking his head impatiently.

“Not enough. They’re not after me, are they? Or Richards. They haven’t even made a play for Bruce, and you _know_ they’d be interested in the-”

“Tony,” Bruce growled; their friend nodded once.

“Sorry. Moving on. What the hell do Death Eaters want with some halfblood Irishman with a muggle-born girlfriend? He was right, they’re much better off going after Romanova. Your father alone-”

“Say one more word about my father, Stark.”

Even Tony wasn’t that brave. Barnes was quiet for so long that Clint was almost certain he wasn’t going to answer at all by the time Steph raised her eyes, chillingly calm.

“It’s not blood purity they’re after- it’s quality.”

Tony stared. Clint did too. Tasha clicked her teeth impatiently.

“Think about it, Stark. What’s a halfblood Irishman got to offer that almost no one else on earth could?”

Tony looked as stumped as Bruce- to his own surprise, it was Clint himself who got there first.

“You’re _daoine sídhe_ ,” he realized. “They’re looking for an advocate with the other folk.”

The people of the mounds had been the swing vote in every Irish magical rebellion Clint had ever read about. Barnes smiled faintly.

“Five points to Gryffindor for actually researching that essay.”

“Yours got top marks,” Tony remembered- for all he professed zero interest in the history of magic, he couldn’t seem _not_ to notice and take offence when Barnes got praised for anything at all. Stephanie smiled in spite of herself.

“Because he’s brilliant.”

Barnes kissed her cheek, his own eyes closing at the contact as if in relief. Clint didn’t have to look sideways to know that Tony was scowling again.

“Why don’t you just tell them to fuck right off?”

“Did you not hear what I heard?”

Tony shook his head, righteous in his confidence.

“They can’t do any of that. If you go to Fury-”

Stephanie’s laughter, low and bitter, was so cold that Clint _saw_ Tony glance at Tasha as if to see if she could somehow be throwing her voice the way he insisted Barnes sometimes did.

“What the hell do you think we did the first time these clowns came knocking?”

Bruce frowned.

“You’re saying Fury _wants_ you to go to this… Death Eater Recruitment Drive?”

Steph turned her face away, shoulders heaving like she was working hard not to cry. Barnes bent his head to murmur, just for her, and Clint realized abruptly that _of course_ a banshee’s son would know vocal magic like that. It was Tasha who answered for all three of them.

“They want someone on the inside, so they can see how deep this goes. It will be much easier if their people think it was their idea.”

“Tony.”

His head snapped up like someone had cut a rubber-band. Stephanie’s eyes were entreating.

“You can’t tell anyone, okay? It’s dangerous enough as it is.”

Clint had been among Tony Stark’s closest friends since their first day at school, so he knew as well as anyone what it cost the guy not to snatch Stephanie up into a hug of his own. Instead, he closed the gap between them and offered Barnes his hand with studied grace.

“I was wrong,” he said simply. “Apparently you’d have been in Gryffindor for sure if Slytherin didn’t get first dibs on the fancy blood.”

They all saw Barnes wait for Stephanie to nod before he shook Stark’s hand.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, then smiled at Tony for the first time in their long acquaintance. “Bucky Barnes. Good to meet you, Tony Stark.”


	4. seventh year

“Do you _have_ to go?”

Bucky jumped to his feet, already gripping his wand, but Steph knew better than to have revealed herself if anyone might have seen them together.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said anyway, because some months earlier he had broken up with her, coldly and remorselessly, for all of Slytherin house to witness. It would keep her safe, he had told himself then, and had to tell himself again every time he had to feign indifference as Tony Stark threw his arms around her when they won at Quidditch, or danced with her at the leavers’ ball, or watched her back while she cursed Arnim Zola for saying any number of terrible things Nick Fury insisted Bucky should pretend to agree with. It was important, and it would keep her safe.

“Shouldn’t I?”

Stephanie’s face was flushed with anger, but her eyes begged him to say he knew it was her right to stay. “I know you can’t come round to play exploding snap, Buck, but this is a little different, don’t you think?”

Bucky supposed that it was, in that _this_ was an open-ended ‘invitation’ to accompany one of Schmidt’s Death Eater splinter cells into Ireland to seek out the _aos sí_. Stephanie, reading his doubts as well as his remorse plain on his face, grabbed one of Bucky’s hands and held it tight between her own.

“Can’t you just tell Fury this is crazy? Tell those bastards you won’t go, and we can-“

“What, Steph? Leave these guys to their fate and just get the hell out of dodge?”

She clutched at Bucky’s arm with frightened sincerity.

“If that’s what it takes. You _can’t_ go with them, Bucky- god alone knows what they’ll make you do.”

Bucky shook his head roughly, trying not to show that he’d had the same thought more times than he could count.

“You’re not really saying we should just cut and run.”

He watched Stephanie open her mouth to ask him why the hell not, hear the question in her head, and shut her mouth again. Bucky let his fingers lock around Steph’s wrist, squeezing tight for a moment, and then let go and pulled away reluctantly.

“I don’t think there’s any other way, Steph.”

If he knew one, he meant, he would have chosen that path months earlier. A low, treacherous, part of him hoped she would protest again, pin him to the chair, plead with him to choose her over the duty he’d never asked for. If she’d raised those desperate eyes and asked him again to stay Bucky was almost sure he would have done it. Instead, Stephanie let her gaze drop and took her own step backwards.

“I know. I just- you’re right. I know that.”

And just like that, he’d won the argument before it could even develop. Somehow, it didn’t seem like any kind of victory.

“You’ll let Stark know if you need anything.”

“That’s what I do these days, isn’t it?”

"Apparently it is."

He couldn’t hide the bitterness in his voice; Steph backtracked immediately.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Bucky nodded, because in this, too, he couldn’t see any other option that made sense: he could hardly shut Steph out, even with her knowledge and reluctant consent, and yet begrudge the companionship she found elsewhere. He was glad she had it, even, but it hurt in ways he couldn’t describe to know that Tony Stark would be the one she went to while he was leading someone else’s life in the vague hope that Zola would let something slip that could be used against Schmidt at some point.

“James-“

He caught her close, kissed her hard, and hoped to God it wasn’t the last time he would get to do those things.

“I love you, Stephanie Rogers, all right?”

Her hand was gentle on his cheek, as much promise as reassurance.

“I know, a rún.”

He felt his hands clench at the thought of leaving her, even for a while.

“Steph,” he rasped, and knew she’d heard his voice break. “I don’t know if I can-“

She didn’t make him say it, but pressed him to her, his cheek against her shoulder so she could smooth his tears away before they had to acknowledge them.

“You can,” she murmured, absolutely confident. It meant something completely different when it was Steph rather than Fury or Carter making the same unkeepable promise. “You can, and you will, and I’ll be right here when you come home.”

“Promise?”

Bucky sounded like a child even to himself, but with Steph there had never been any reason to hide. She turned her head to kiss his temple.

“You want me to swear?”

His mother had been very clear about that, and Steph knew it. Bucky raised his head so he could meet her sweet, sad eyes.

“I’ll take you to church when we get to that, okay?”

Their eyes dropped together to the necklace she had worn for more than a year already. Stephanie smiled as her hand closed possessively around the rings which were usually hidden under her clothes.

“You better believe I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“James? We should go.”

They stiffened as one- it hadn’t seemed like Tasha could possibly be ready to go so quickly. Stephanie’s hands found Bucky’s cheeks again, guiding him to look her way.

“It’s not your fault, understand? Just remember that. Whatever happens out there- it’s on them, or on Nick Fury for making you two do this. It’s not you, and it’s not your fault, and it doesn’t change a damn thing, Bucky, okay?”

He wasn’t sure he knew what to do with that kind of absolution- unsought, unconditional, and utterly precious- so Bucky just bent his head to kiss his girl again.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ll see you soon, a ghrá geal.”

She smiled like she believed him, so he knocked off a poor imitation of a military salute, shot Tasha a grin she wouldn’t buy for a second, and got the hell out of there before every instinct he’d ever had won out over the knowledge that there just wasn’t anyone else who could do the job they’d been given. Bucky startled, just a little, when Tasha touched his forearm to get his attention.

“All right?”

He shrugged.

“Do I have a choice?”

Tasha knew better than to offer unlooked-for sympathy.

“Good man.”

Bucky closed his eyes, but kept walking. He tried not to wonder how long more that could possibly be a fair assessment given where they were headed. It was important, he reminded himself yet again, and hoped that much at least was true. It was important, and more than that it would keep her safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aos sí is one of the names for the old-school supernatural race in Irish mythology. Bucky's mam in this is one of Clíodhna's daughters, so she's a bit like a banshee but was neither a hag nor always a siren of death. Because of this Bucky is also a chosen of Clíodhna, which is a direct connection to Irish mythological aristocracy; thus the Death Eaters' interest in his potential as an advocate.


	5. third year after graduation

“Don’t, Steph.”

Tony’s hand closed over Stephanie’s wrist before she could slam the kitchen door in his face. He swallowed hard when her expression failed to soften, but took it as a good sign that she hadn’t gone for her wand yet.

“Look, I’m sorry- I shouldn’t have said that.”

He hadn’t meant that Steph was any less than outstanding as an Auror- only that it was harder than he liked to protect a girl who rewrote the book on recklessness, even for a Gryffindor.

“No. You shouldn’t.”

She wasn’t going to give an inch. “You think I can’t do my job, is that it?”

Her eyes were stormy; if he read the next part wrong it might be weeks until she spoke to him again. Tony had never loved her more.

“It’s not like that, Stephanie.”

“What the hell is it like, then?”

He grabbed her around the waist, his hands firm but also caressing, and pressed his lips fervently to hers. It had worked for Barnes, he thought- more than five years later it still took some doing to get the image of that kiss out of his head. He almost laughed out loud in sheer despair when the door to his father’s office, which was now Fury’s for all intents and purposes, opened with a click. Of course the devil could be summoned after _years_ without a word, just by thinking of him at the most inopportune moment.

“When did _this_ happen?”

Stephanie wrenched free without so much as looking Tony’s way.

“James! I didn’t- what are you-”

She cast Fury a glance so frigid that Tony had to be impressed when their leader managed not to shiver under the force of it.

“He never said you were coming.”  

Barnes gave a disinterested kind of half-shrug, putting Tony much more in mind of Romanova poised to ignore the Gryffindors entirely than of Steph’s devoted shadow from their school-days. He offered Fury his hand.

“I’ll send word when I can. Don’t worry- I can see myself out.”

If only Howard hadn’t charmed their home against apparition within the wards, the whole thing would have been over without any further awkwardness. Instead, Barnes had to keep going, right past the kitchen, and Stephanie never even thought twice before going after him.

“Well,” Tony muttered, swiping at his mouth because he couldn’t look at Nick Fury with Steph Rogers’ lipstick still on his face. “Fuck.”

Fury raised an eyebrow, but shut the study door without comment. Tony watched, chilled through in a way that had very little to do with the war _or_ the depths of winter, as Stephanie reached for her boy just before the door swung shut behind them.

“James, wait.”

“It’s all right. You don’t have to explain.”

She hadn’t heard his voice, even, in a little over three years.

“Bucky-”

He gave an uneasy kind of chuckle.

“Haven’t heard that in a while.”

The smile he offered Steph was so out of practice that it was all she could do not to fling both arms around her poor lost boy and beg him to forgive her for ever letting him leave.

“I’m sorry, a rún.”

“No,” he murmured, already exhausted. “It’s fine- I should never have asked you to wait. Three years without a word isn’t what I promised you at all.”

That he really seemed to believe it was the saddest cut of all. “You tell him, Stephanie, all right- if he ever hurts you I’ll cut his pureblood lungs out and feed them to the crows.”

Stephanie tried- she really did try- not to wonder whether Bucky had seen someone do that in the service of the Red Skull. She didn’t wonder what he’d had to do himself, either- she had years of practice, now, in not wondering precisely that.

“It’s not like that,” she insisted, clutching at his arm because there was a part of her still struggling to believe that he could be really there, just inches away, for the first time in far too long. Bucky cocked an eyebrow, but he didn’t pull away.

“Looked like that to me.”

“He surprised me, that’s all. James, I’d never-”

She cut herself off, surprised, when he reached out to close disbelieving fingers around the necklace she’d never taken off.

“You shouldn’t,” he murmured, but didn’t seem to know how to articulate what it was he was asking her not to do. “I’m not the same guy who left, Stephanie.”

That much was true, Steph knew, or Tony would have been in hospital by that point. She closed one hand around his too-bony wrist and wondered how that meager contact could feel so much more intimate than Tony’s lips on hers.

“Maybe I’m not the same girl you left, either.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back again.”

“I don’t care.”

He raised his eyes, almost angry.

“Maybe you should. What the hell kind of engagement is this, that’s more likely to make a widow of you than a wife?”

Steph couldn’t ask what Fury had said, or even where they were sending him next. Instead, she reached up and tangled her hand in his hair like she hadn’t done in years.

“Don’t keep me waiting, then. Marry me now.”

“What?”

He looked so shocked that Steph found she had to smile.

“It’s not _that_ complicated. You don’t want to make me wait. I don’t want to wait. I’m asking: what the hell are we waiting for, James?”

She could see it, on his face and in his clenching hand- he wanted, so much, to say yes to her.

“I have to go. In the morning we have to be-”

“In the morning? Are you a wizard or aren’t you?”

Bucky looked more worried than anything else.

“Steph, what kind of life is this for a new bride?”

She knew what he meant, of course she did, but Steph still shook her head before she leaned in close.

“If it’s the kind I’ll get with you, it’s the only one I want.”

“Steph-“

“Bucky, please.”

Whatever he saw in her face convinced him. Instead of answering, Bucky wrapped his arm around Steph’s waist and flicked his wand decisively. They reappeared in the rural parish church where they had met as children. Steph turned, still secure in his embrace, and kissed Bucky’s cheek with pure, breathless delight.

“D’you think Father O’Leary’s ever done an emergency wedding before?”

Bucky shrugged; the priest in question had been pastor and confessor to Clíodhna’s children long enough that an emergency wedding was unlikely to be the strangest demand he’d heard that month, even.

“You’re sure this is what you want.”

Steph twined their hands together and held on tight.

“I’ve been sure my whole life, James Barnes.”

Forty-some minutes later they were man and wife, just like that, and it was Steph who waved her wand to take them back to London. They snuck up the stairs like teenagers, giggling into shared breaths until Bucky rolled his eyes and cast a silencing charm so Steph would stop worrying about who might overhear what. He’d seemed so sure, even as Steph nudged her bedroom door shut behind them, but froze under his new wife's hands when she moved to help unclasp his cloak.

“Hey,” Steph murmured, close to his ear. “Relax, will you? It’s just me.”

“Steph,” he whispered, covering her hands with his where they rested.

“That’s right. Come to bed, James.”

After that, it only took one sweet, impatient _now, Bucky_ to convince him that it was not just his right but also his spousal duty to claim his bridegroom’s privilege without delay; he smiled that devastating smile, unchanged by time and trials, and did his devoted best by her.

“I love you,” Bucky whispered afterwards, over and over like he thought Steph might not know. They were as close together as they could be, more one than they had ever been before, but there was a catch in his voice that told her she was losing him already. “I love you _so much_ , beautiful girl.”

He kissed her neck with desperate reverence. “Beautiful wife.”

Stephanie stroked possessive hands down his too-lean arms and knew she had to ask.

“What is it?”

He didn’t try to hide the sorrow in his eyes.

“I can’t go back to them with this. I thought I could, Steph, but-“ he shrugged helplessly. “I don’t think anyone’s _that_ good at occlumency.”

The rest, Steph knew already. It was his greatest fear, and had been from the start: even now, when everyone in the Death Eater camp believed it had been years since Bucky had even seen his one-time sweetheart, they knew too well what she still meant to him. It was the main reason they hadn’t been married straight out of school, Steph was almost sure; possibly it was the reason Fury had tried so hard to make sure they hadn’t seen each other since.

“This was a mistake,” Steph whispered. “James, I’m sorry. I should never have made you-“

“It wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t- don’t you dare convince yourself I don’t want this as much as you.”

He waited for her to nod. “We have to be careful, Steph, that’s all.”

Steph nodded again, because as in so many instances of late it was the only option, and claimed her husband’s lips one more time before she let him leave her to get washed and dressed. Not nearly long enough later, they were back on the step where she had stopped him storming out on her. It was still dark outside, and wet; even Schmidt wouldn’t miss the time Bucky was about to lose.

“No,” Stephanie protested in a voice that was almost a whimper. It wasn’t fair, she wanted to cry- they’d barely had one night, and now he wouldn’t even get to keep that. James looked as wrecked as she felt, but pressed her wand into her hands and wrapped his fingers around hers to steady them at its base.

“You’ll come find me after.”

Steph urged him closer, heedless of the tears that mingled where their cheeks brushed.

“Try and stop me. I love you, okay? Forever and for always, no matter what you remember.”

He tried to smile; they kissed again. As they broke apart, Stephanie whispered the spell she wished he’d never had to learn. Bucky froze, powerless to react as she took every perfect memory of that long evening carefully from his mind. When his slack expression re-formed into the bitter self-recrimination from earlier, she knew she’d done exactly what he’d wanted.

“I’ll tell him,” she muttered, barely audible. How strange, to have to remind him of that unsolicited, meaningless kiss, precisely to distract him from everything that had come after. “Look after yourself, all right?”

James nodded without looking at her.

“You too, Stephanie.”

He hesitated, struggling with himself; Stephanie squeezed his shoulder and forced the words past her constricted throat.

“Come back safe, Bucky. We’ll talk when this is over, I promise.”

He nodded stiffly, already dipping a hand into his cloak to retrieve his wand. Steph watched her new husband disappear mid-stride, then took herself back upstairs and cried herself to sleep in the marriage bed he would not share with her again.


	6. two months later (early fourth year after graduation)

The kestrel that careened through the half-open window to sprawl at Peggy Carter’s feet left a trail of blood right up to the coffee table at which she had been poring over highly confidential correspondence. She had her wand aimed at the bird’s heart before she was sure it had survived, but only spoke after it had raised its groggy head.

“Show yourself. Now.”   

The air around the Animagus seemed to stretch and shift, revealing a shock of dirty blonde hair and a cheeky grin Peggy would never have known to expect.

“ _Barton_?”

“’s okay,” her former student rasped, struggling to raise his bloodied hands in a gesture of surrender. “I knew you’d be surprised I had it in me.”

Carter pressed the boy who had once been her star chaser firmly back against the thick carpeting.

“Stop your flailing. If you lose any more blood the Baron will think we’re trying to replace him.”

Barton let his head fall back with a quiet thump.

“Don’t need any  _more_ crazy purebloods mad’t us.”

“No,” Peggy agreed calmly. She kept her free hand over Barton’s cheek, stopping him from rising, while she summoned her patronus. “Bruce: we need you in the study, please.”

Barton watched with the wonder of a much younger boy as Peggy's little red fox sprang away, lithe and wispy. She had to keep him awake, Peggy knew; years of cuffing him about the head for failing to pay attention in her classes suggested that the best way to do that was to keep him talking.

“How in Heaven’s name did you manage this unsupervised?”

He hadn’t done it on his own, Clint admitted readily- it had been his idea, but Tony had been the one to find the spell. So they could keep Bruce company, he murmured, like it was simple. Peggy closed her eyes and tried not to imagine what any number of parents would have to say if word got out that there had been students cavorting unsupervised with an adolescent werewolf. She had to wonder whether Fury knew- in some ways it would explain a good deal about his willingness to take a group of teenagers into the fold with barely more than an are-you-sure-you-know-the-risks.

”You’re sure no one else knows.”

He would have shaken his head if she’d let him.

“Steph caught us at it in fifth year.”

His smile was small but deeply affectionate. “’s not like you have to  _tell_ those three to keep a secret, though, you know?”

There wasn’t really any need to elaborate- what Stephanie Rogers knew, at least at the time, James Barnes had always known as well, and what James knew- and this was still true, unless Fury had somehow found a way to poison that of late- Tasha Romanova always found out in the end, but for most intents and purposes their mutual confidences never went any further than that. Speaking of whom, Peggy realised with sudden, sickening clarity that she recognised the spell that had Clint’s open wounds refusing to heal under her attentions.

“This is  _sectum sempra_.”

It was the Romanov curse, invented centuries ago but perfected by Natasha’s own father, in the previous war. Peggy shuddered- sometimes the thought of how that would have gone if the Russians had sided differently still kept her up at night. Clint, of course, could not follow.

“Lukin was right there- she had to do it.”

He gave a solid effort at a real, self-satisfied smirk.

“Soon’s he blinked she screamed the killing curse for them all to hear- ripped up the pipes an’ everything so I could get out of there.”  

“Brave girl,” Peggy said softly; they would see the supposed murder as an act of mercy, and a propensity for acts of mercy was not much desired in Death Eaters. Suddenly, her arm was caught in a bloody, vice-like grip.

“You have to tell Fury. If they think she did it-“

“I’ll tell him,” Peggy promised, easing him back to the ground before he hurt himself further. She couldn’t let him see how right he was- the way things were going Natasha wouldn’t have a prayer at trial. “Try to stay calm; we need you on your feet.”

His death-grip relaxed a little.

“Always knew you liked me best. After Rogers, I mean.”

“Don’t make me petrify you, Barton.”

He laughed, which came close to turning into a terrible, violent cough, and fell back again with a sigh.

“Hopeless,” Peggy murmured, pressing a grateful hand to his poor matted hair. Clint Barton, who knew damn well she’d had a soft spot for him since the first time he’d been sent to her office for charming his classmates’ quills to re-enact his favourite quidditch plays, smiled much too innocently for a boy who had become both an animagus and a spy with terrifyingly inadequate supervision.

“Coulson woulda given points f’r this.”

“Fifty at least,” Peggy admitted, touched by Clint’s rare willingness to talk about their fallen friend. “Be quiet, now, or I might have to  _take_ points.”

“Not a student ‘nymore,” he grumbled, but smirked instead of complaining when she tweaked his ear in reprimand. “Sorry, professor.”

“Quiet,” Peggy ordered, but kept petting the blasted boy’s hair until Bruce came tumbling in to see to him.

By the time the group was assembled, Clint was, at least, no longer bleeding. Propped up by as many pillows as his machismo would permit, he gave them the news Natasha Romanova had risked her life twice over to free him to deliver. Bruce and Tony exchanged a speaking look; Tony spoke for both of them.

“Is that it?”

The jumbled fragment that had Schmidt’s followers all worked up hardly qualified as a whole prophecy in Tony’s book- they barely knew more than that some “child of two houses” was meant to bring about the fall of the Dark Lord. He glared at Fury, more unsettled than he wanted to admit by how badly Clint had been hurt, by their own supposed friend, for the merest scrap of intelligence.  

“Did you really drag us all in here to talk about Divination?”

“Not exactly,” Fury answered evenly. “It doesn’t matter whether there’s any substance to it: the issue is that Schmidt believes there is.”

That, unfortunately, actually made sense. Bruce shut his eyes, his face pinched with sudden, unwilling comprehension.

“That’s why they went after Johnny Storm.”

There was a moment of pained silence, then Fury inclined his head and reported calmly that Reed and Sue were already making preparations. Ben Grimm, who wouldn’t hear of anyone else taking on the Secret Keeper’s burden on their behalf, would go into hiding himself at the same time. Stephanie offered the room a stilted smile, whispered that Ben was the best defence anyone could hope for, and left without another word.  

“I'll go,” Tony decided when Carter began to lever herself to weary feet. She didn’t look wholly convinced- Tony had no idea how much his former Head of House knew about why exactly he and Steph had barely said a word to each other all winter, but there was no way she hadn’t noticed the sudden brittleness in their dynamic- but resumed her seat without too much overt reluctance.

“Ye of little faith,” Tony muttered, mostly for effect, and left the others to their discussion of Schmidt’s more cultic interests.  

His first thought, when he found Steph in the upstairs reading room, was that he hadn’t realised that she had been so close to Reed. They’d been prefects together, Tony knew, but he couldn’t explain the heartbreak on her face until he wondered why she had one hand pressed like a too-fragile shield over her own abdomen.

“Well,” he stuttered, much more taken aback than he should have been by the pieces slamming suddenly into place. He’d been pretty sure Barnes had let Steph catch up to him, but she’d looked so fragile the next day that he’d assumed the worst. She hadn’t said a word, though, and whether she blamed him or not Tony had been way too scared of hitting any number of too-exposed nerves to ask. “Yeah, they’ll be much more interested in this kid than some …Raven…puff. Huffleclaw?”

He hadn’t really expected her to laugh.

“They’ll kill him. Tony, they’ll-”

She didn’t have to remind him of the crime scenes that had become all too common in recent months- they’d fallen headfirst into the kind of abyss where  _sectum sempra_ was Tasha’s way of helping out a friend. Barnes was well and truly entrenched in the very depths of it by now, personal brewer to the self-declared Dark Lord and trusted ally of the cause. If they ever realised it had all been for the other side- Tony shuddered, and saw Steph’s shoulders rise and fall in a terrified, heaving sob.

“No,” he realised abruptly- for once there was something concrete they could do to get in Schmidt’s way before he even knew he’d been played. “He’s going to be fine. They won’t look at either of you twice if they think it’s mine.”

Stephanie froze.

“Tony-”

“Don’t worry,” he said softly, not quite managing the casual charm he’d been gunning for. “I’m not about to try  _that_ on again.”  
Cautiously, he reached out to take her hand. “I’m just saying, I’m almost sure we can keep you both safe without doing much more than placing some kind of advert in the Prophet and maybe getting you a ring.”

Most people wouldn’t even question it: wartime weddings being what they were, their friends seemed to be pairing off at an alarming rate, and even the oldest pureblood families seemed to have stop insisting on the long engagements that had been traditional for centuries. “Let me help, Steph.”

Her eyes searched his for whatever it was a woman looked for when a guy she had to know had been halfway in love with her for years offered to marry her to protect the man they both knew she’d rather be with. After a long pause, but before Tony completely forgot how to breathe, she took his other hand in hers and squeezed both for all she was worth.

“Thank you.”

He’d never really imagined asking anyone to marry him, but Tony was almost sure that if there were tears involved they were supposed to be of joy.

“I’m sorry,” Steph murmured, their hands still joined between them. “I know this isn’t what you wanted, but-“

“Shh,” Tony rumbled sternly. “We’ve got this, Rogers.”

It  _wasn’t_  what he’d hoped for by any measure, but he'd understood at once that was the right thing to do- maybe the only thing to do. Tony had never needed much more than that to go on.  

“Thank you,” Steph said again; Tony waved her off with a cocky grin that he could almost imagine looked like the real thing.

“Stop that! Don’t you know that if you thank a Stark man more than twice for the same act of brilliance his head will grow two hat sizes?”

Steph gave a faded chuckle.

“Is  _that_ what you people tell yourselves?”

Tony hoped she couldn’t feel the way his heart was slamming against his rib-cage. He wiggled his eyebrows, not sure which of them he was trying to distract.

“What, did you think your guys had a monopoly on family legends?”

One of her hands came to rest at his shoulder, utterly chaste but undeniably fond.

“’Least we don’t make ours up on the fly.”

“Tragic lack of creativity,” Tony decided after a moment; he let himself smile when Stephanie whacked his arm on principle. “Oy, is that any way to treat your fiancé?”

It was too much by half, but she let him get away with it. Tony held her as close as he dared and let Steph pretend she wasn’t still in tears.

 


	7. three more months later (fourth year since graduation)

“I’m sorry,” Ben Grimm rasped through ravaged lips.

“Hey,” Tony objected, already moving to free him from rusty-looking shackles that had been charmed to contain the half-giant’s strength. “It’s hardly your fault these guys are completely insane.”

Reed’s closest friend closed his eyes.

“Not for that, Tony. I’d never have- but-”

He gave a weary sigh. “He gave his word they’d let Sue and Frankie go.”

Tony’s eyes widened; even as he realized what Ben was implying they made out the tell-tale crackling groan of several people apparating, at once, close to the perimeter wards.

“Go,” he muttered, shoving Steph towards the hole he’d blown in the makeshift prison wall. Of course it had been too much to hope that things could be that easy. “Get out of here, it’s a-”

“I know, you ass. Do you really think I’d leave you on your own?”

Normally he wouldn’t, but there was nothing normal about their present reality. Tony gave his supposed wife another determined shove.

“Keep that kid safe, Stephanie.”

She understood what he was saying: there was much more than his life at stake. Unexpectedly, Steph pressed close and kissed his cheek as if for luck.

“Stay sharp, Stark.”

She was gone before Zola’s men broke down the door.

Steph made it farther than she had expected- she had very nearly reached the perimeter wards beyond which it would be safe to take herself away when her wand jerked right out of her hands. She would have turned to go after it, or at least to defend herself, but every part of her body except her head had turned suddenly and painfully to ice.

“Stephanie Rogers. This _is_ a surprise.”

Schmidt wasn’t the only one- somehow Steph hadn’t even considered the possibility that he might be on the scene. The Red Skull leered at her, terrifying in his sinister conviviality.

“Stephanie Stark, I should say. Our mutual friend was quite distressed to hear the news.”

She had never imagined that the last person to give her news of her husband would be the monster who had made it impossible for them to be together.

“Well,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “He should’ve thought of that before he joined you, shouldn’t he.”

“I assure you,” Schmidt practically beamed, “He’s thought about it since. Which has been a great help to me, you understand- as it turns out, that young man does his best work trying to forget you.”

Stephanie fought without the least success to free herself from Schmidt’s containment spell.

“So, what, you’re doing this to thank me for movin’ on?”

He gave a cold, cold smile.

“Precisely.”

The Red Skull raised his dueling arm so his wand was aimed right between her eyes. “He'll be the foremost sorcerer of his generation without you to distract him.”

Stephanie bit her lip, hard, to stop the scream already rising at the thought of how her James would take what little news he might be given- Schmidt didn’t deserve the pleasure. She met his gaze calmly, without a hint of the dread that was already choking her.

“Top of the pile of slaves and minions is still pretty pathetic in my book.”

Schmidt looked faintly disappointed.

“Typical Gryffindor,” he growled, lip curling slightly in distaste. “I’ve never understood the appeal.”

One shoulder rose and dropped in a half-hearted shrug of dismissal.

“Well. Goodbye, Mrs. Stark.”

The flash of green that followed the killing curse was so bright that Steph already had her eyes screwed shut and one hand thrown up against the glare when she realized firstly that there should never have been an ‘after the killing curse’ for her and secondly that she had recovered the use of her limbs.

“Steph! Stephanie, what the-”

And then Tony was there, grabbing her in a rough, wholly comforting embrace before she stumbled. By the time she raised her head again, Nick Fury was standing over them with an almost fatherly expression of concern.

“Is she all right?”

“I’m fine,” Stephanie answered for herself. Her voice was weak and unconvincing, but she knew with strange clarity that both she and her baby were unharmed. “Why the hell am I fine?”

“I second that question,” Tony muttered, but pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead anyway. Their former headmaster locked eyes with Steph before letting his gaze drop lower.

“I take it that’s not Stark’s child.”

Tony, bless him, looked very ready to deny it. Steph, beginning to see where things were going, grasped his shoulder to keep him quiet.

“You think this is Clíodhna’s geis?”

Tony glanced uncertainly between them as Fury nodded gravely.

“We’ve always suspected it would be enough.”

Tony scowled.

“Good for you. Would you like to share with the rest of us? Which is just me, but still."

Fury inclined his head, still very calm.

“We’ve known for centuries that only the oldest forms of magic have any chance of stand up against the Unforgivables.”

That, of course, was why the aos sídhe were always among the first consulted whenever a sea change was anticipated. Tony looked perplexed, and not a little frustrated at being strung along.

“Are we saying Barnes did this?”

“Not him,” Steph offered, just a little shaky. “His family- Clíodhna made a promise to protect her boys from the fate of Mac Lir.”

“I thought his mother’s name was Fred,” Tony objected; he’d heard Steph talk about her enough in all the years they’d been close.

“This was centuries ago,” Fury interrupted, slipping into his educator’s voice. “She was a goddess whose sister, Macha-“

“She wasn’t a goddess,” Steph protested- this much she knew well thanks to Bucky’s mam and Father O’Leary both. “They’re the Old Ones, that’s all, and Macha was her cousin, not her sister.”

“Noted,” Tony murmured, still utterly lost. Fury picked up where Steph had forced him to leave off.

“Macha had a son, Manannán mac Lir, who married a mort- a human woman. Unfortunately the girl died in childbirth, and her husband had something of a meltdown in response.”

“ _His grief o’erran the very bounds of earth_ ,” Steph quoted; her voice was shaken, her expression just distant enough for Tony to guess that she wasn’t thinking about Mac Lir’s possible response to the death of his beloved. “Macha turned him to stone to save the earth before his tears drowned everyone.”

“Right,” Tony granted when it became clear that the other two felt that they had explained things adequately. “And this got rid of the Dark Lord who’s been making us all miserable for years now _how_ , again?”

Steph dropped her head to his shoulder, closing her eyes because she wasn’t sure she wanted to see Tony’s face for this next bit. Fury finished the story in a far more matter-of-fact tone than Auntí Fred had ever used.

“When Clíodhna saw what happened to Macha and Mac Lir, she took a geis-“

“Made a promise,” Steph murmured before Tony could complain.

“- to protect her family from the same kind of tragedy. Clíodhna’s geis therefore states that any woman worthy of her husband will be safe while she carries a child of the blood.”

Tony’s arms were stiff and leaden around Steph’s shoulders.

“I’m guessing Barnes is a child of the blood, then.”

Steph nodded, still a little choked up.

“Did you _know_ about this?”

She gave a non-committal shrug- they’d known the stories, like most everyone who lived down south, but as was often the case with the Old Ones it was hard to know which bits were real and which were folklore and fantasy. Much more disconcerting, Nick Fury was nodding.

“It was unclear whether they had to be legally wed.”

Steph opened her mouth to protest that they were, then decided it was none of Fury’s god-damned business and shut her mouth again. Without really thinking about it, she wrapped the hand that wasn’t still clutching the wand Tony had restored to her around the delicate chain of her ever-present necklace. The rings she had worn for so long were now discreetly transfigured, but the imagery Steph had chosen, a lightly filigreed lock and key, wasn’t exactly subtle. Tony, thankfully, was already distracted by a much more pressing question.

“What are we going to tell people? If they find out about this-”

He trailed off unhappily as Steph’s heart seized anew.

“We can’t tell anyone,” she realized. “If the Death Eaters realize he’s one of ours he’ll be a target for the rest of his life, and the Ministry-“

Tony shuddered with her- it would be like the werewolf laws, she knew he’d understood at once, but about forty times more paranoid and therefore utterly unreasonable.

“I could disappear,” he offered, babbling a little as his mouth ran on in an effort to keep up with still-forming thoughts. “You could say it was sacrificial magic, you know- he killed me, I died for you, you couldn’t even-“

“I’m not letting you fake your own death for me,” Steph objected. Tony would have argued, she was sure, but they both fell silent when they realized Nick Fury was chuckling softly.

“It’s always zebras before horses with you, Stark.”

Tony looked even more confused than when they’d actually been using Gaelic words.

“Do you ever say things in a normal way?”

“He thinks we should just say it was him,” Steph realized. “We were in the house, fighting Zola, and never saw any part of this.”

“Oh,” Tony murmured. “That does sound simpler. Plus, you’ll get all the medals and media attention and violent reprisals- yeah, this is a _much_ better deal for me.”

He squeezed Steph’s hand, smiling faintly as he pulled away a little.

“You’ll let her tell Barnes, though, right? He should know he somehow managed to have your back without even turning up to the fight.”

The headmaster shook his head.

“I’d prefer not to tell him anything until we know for sure that Schmidt has no way to return.”

He raised a hand to stem their shared objections, but had the grace to look genuinely regretful. “I’m sorry, Stephanie. Barnes is one of our best assets on their side- we just can’t afford to risk that until we’re much more confident that this is really over.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand now we're _really_ off the rails teehee  
>  this Macha&mac Lir story is partly real mythology but mostly Song of the Sea, which is an extremely beautiful recent movie about the space between the old ones and the …us ones.  
> it's not THAT different from harry potter canon, I guess, in that it's still both sacrificial magic and promise magic, mostly formed by a mother's selfless love for her son(s), that somehow gets in the way of the killing curse. hmm.


	8. fifth year since graduation

A shard of hysterical laughter escaped Tasha’s lips at the sight of the Gryffindor quartet sitting close together in Fury’s office.

“Just like old times. Except for the child.”

Stark’s hands twitched as though he expected to need his wand- that, too, was like old times. Steph, however, was already approaching with her young daughter in her arms.

“Tasha,” she murmured warmly. “It’s so good to see you again.”

She sounded like she meant it, too. Tasha bent to inspect the child who should have been a Barnes and found that she could easily have passed for one. The infant’s hair was dark and wavy- apparently Stephanie had a type- and its eyes, tracking Tasha’s movements with placid interest, were Steph’s own startling blue.

“Her name?”

“Sarah.”

It was the Irish way, James had explained when Tasha had remarked on the recurrence of names in his family. She inclined her head, extending a hand to stroke the baby’s cheek mostly because its father still looked ready to fight her. Tasha let her smile harden into a smirk.

“Relax, Stark- I never learnt the curse about the spinning wheels.”

Stephanie smiled as her husband began to bluster indignantly, but Tasha had already seen the deep sorrow in her eyes. Good, then- at least she knew what she had done. It wasn’t her fault, James had insisted a dozen times or more, that long night Tasha had spent watching her best friend’s heart break while thirty Death Eaters looked on with glee. He’d told her not to wait for him, he’d only ever wanted her to be happy, he knew she would be safe in the bosom of her Gryffindor clan. Tasha clamped her mouth shut before she could demand why it had had to be Stark, in particular, of all people. By the time she felt she could be trusted to speak again, Clint had made his way over, casting Sarah an utterly besotted look along the way.

“Hey,” he smiled, much less reluctantly than she might have expected considering how they’d parted. “You look like hell, Nat.”

She’d always hated his insistence on that terrible shortform.

“Fifteen months in Azkaban will do that.”

They stared at each other for one breath, and then another, before Clint grabbed her in a desperate, grateful hug.

“They made it, you know- Reed and Sue and the kid. You did that.”

She’d done plenty of other things, too, but it was hard to stay bitter knowing Clint would have been the one whose endless haranguing had kept Carter on the Ministry’s case until they’d given up and released Tasha into the school’s custody.

“What? Where the hell is she?”

Stephanie froze to the spot at the sound of a voice Tasha was fairly sure she had never expected to hear again. Stark closed his eyes briefly.

“I can take her.”

“No, it’s-”

“I want to see her. Now.”

The door to the inner office crashed open as if James had chosen a battering charm instead of _alohamora_. Barton’s involuntary gasp set the tone for the group’s reaction- Stark dropped back into his char, too disturbed to worry about repercussions anymore, while Banner jumped up as if compelled to try some new healing charm on the pale and wretched shadow of the boy they had once known. James himself only had eyes for one of them.

“Tasha, thank god.”

Almost defiantly, considering their audience, Tasha stepped past Stephanie and into his arms. James was more gaunt even than when she’d last seen him, his pale eyes almost eerie in that devastated face. “They wouldn’t tell me anything- Strucker _or_ Fury. For so long I thought you were-“

“I’m not,” Tasha offered; Clint laughed softly, but she hadn’t meant it as anything but a serious reassurance. One of James’s hands traced the unnatural streak of silver that marred the deep auburn of Tasha’s hair where some errant curse had missed its mark. She smiled, touching two fingers to his wrist to complete the motion with him.

“I quite like it, you know.”

“Suits your face,” James quipped; they’d been about fourteen when Tasha had decided that was the only judgment he was allowed to give while she experimented with hairstyling charms. Alarmingly close to tears, she leaned into his embrace so she could kiss his poor ashen cheek.

“Thank god you got away, mili moy.”

“God and Nick Fury,” Clint murmured; it had been the headmaster’s machinations that had seeded the idea in Zemo’s camp. Placing a spy as close to Schmidt’s supposed nemesis as possible could only be advantageous, after all. James had had very little choice except to keep his head down and affect total disinterest until Strucker reached the inevitable conclusion that he was the obvious choice- assuming that the cover story about jealousy and revenge was not in fact the truth. Zemo and his friends, of course, had been all too eager to test their spy’s loyalty using every means they hadn’t tried already. Tasha’s fingers followed the path of a silvering scar that ran nearly the length of her dearest friend’s forearm.

“How bad was it?”

His haunted eyes gave the answer he would never voice in the presence of four Gryffindors.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

The baby in Stephanie’s arms gave an unexpected gurgle, strangely loud in the small, crowded room. James turned his head.

“Stephanie.”

She smiled, too emotional even to say his name. James took a tentative step closer and held out one slender hand as though offering a handshake. Stark laughed uneasily.

“That kid’s six months old, she’s not going to-“

Tiny hands latched around his fingers; Sarah squealed with pleasure when James gave a gentle wave that jostled both her arms.

“Her name is Sarah,” Tasha offered because no one else seemed up to it. His smile was immediate, and deeply understanding.

“Sarah Stark,” he said quietly, entirely absorbed in the infant’s curious gaze. “Aren’t you a sweet little thing?”

He never even acknowledged her father. Stephanie had opened her mouth, ready to use actual words, but the door was already swinging open again- Fury and Carter were finally prepared to tell them why they had been summoned back to school. Fury looked to James and Tasha first.

“The Death Eaters don’t believe the Red Skull is really dead, either.”

Because she’d already seen the state of his poor arms, Tasha slid her own sleeve back to reveal the ugly mark of their unwilling allegiance.

“It should disappear completely when he dies.”

Clint reached out to grasp her wrist, leaning in with sick fascination.

“It’s all faded- so he’s mostly dead?”

Carter smiled, not happily.

“James was filling us in on Strucker’s interest in horcruces.”

Tasha felt her blood chill- of course that was it. Banner noticed her face change.

“You’ve heard of them too?”

“Not from Strucker- my father had some books. A lot of books- the darkest kind of dark magic. We were never allowed to look at them.”

Clint smiled a little.

“Which means you read as many as you could reach, right?”

“Yes.”

Carter gave the rest a brief, clinical summary which left most of the room looking as nauseous as Clint already did.

“Why the hell would anyone ever-”

“He’s afraid, Barton.”

James’s eyes were colder than he’d ever let the Gryffindors see them. “They’re all a bunch of god-damned cowards with more power than sense.”

His hard expression gentled when Sarah whimpered at the change in his voice. Stephanie smiled, but dropped the hand that had started to reach out in comfort.

“How many are we talking about?”

“Too many by half,” Carter muttered, obviously thinking of both horcruces and surviving sympathisers. “Fortunately, young James has been keeping both eyes open on our behalf.”

Tasha laughed out loud at the approval ringing in Carter’s every word.

“You make it sound like he won us the house cup,” she muttered when Fury shot her a reprimanding glare. “He’s not listing potions ingredients, Carter- these are isolated sections of that demon’s soul.”

Carter nodded, slightly chastened; the meeting moved quite quickly after that. They had to send a team out to track down Schmidt’s scattered abberations before Strucker’s people found them, but they also had to keep a solid enough core group active in the public eye to avoid showing too clearly that Fury believed the Red Skull could return. Clint had already declared that he would rather die than teach teenagers anything, and no one who had ever met Natasha Romanova would have dared to suggest it. Stark was the foremost duelist among the others, and in any case neither a werewolf nor a woman with a babe still in arms could be quite as reliable on a long-term recon mission as either would have hoped. James, of course, already had his assignment from Strucker and Zemo. Stephanie tilted her head at him, considering.

“You’ll teach potions,” she guessed; he shrugged dispassionately.

“Anything but Quidditch.”

She seemed taken aback by his tone, but Fury moved straight on to specific tasks before either of them could say another word. Later, as the group splintered to set their next steps in motion, Tasha grasped James’s hand to keep him in the office. He stayed in place obediently, but his eyes followed Stephanie and her daughter from the room.

“I don’t think I should leave you again.”

Once she left with Clint and Stark, she had very little doubt that James would lock himself away and wind up no less isolated than if he had stayed among their enemies.

“They’ll need you, Tasha.”

She did know more about dark magic than the whole of that fool house.

“Then I wish you could come with me.”

James sighed, glancing unhappily at the tattoo they had in common.

“They’ll come here first when he makes it back.”

And of course he’d never leave Steph Rogers in any kind of danger if he could help it, no matter how many times the mere fact of their proximity broke his heart anew. Tasha sighed too.

“If he makes it back- it might be years, you know. Or never.”

“Or two weeks, or a month, or tomorrow. We have to be ready.”

She was so tired of watching him put everything aside for duty and obligation, but Tasha she smiled as gently as she remembered how and pulled him into another bracing hug. She wasn’t sure there was any way that he could die that she hadn’t seen a hundred times in Azkaban- in retrospect it was almost flattering, for him, how often they had put him at the centre of her waking nightmares.

“Even the Dementors know you’re my one good thing,” Tasha told him, from his point of view quite apropos of nothing. “I expect you to stay in touch, understand?”

“I promise,” James murmured, wholly sincere; Tasha pressed him close again before they let each other go.


	9. entr'acte- Sarah aged four

“She’s something, isn’t she?”

Steph smiled, not that Tony would have noticed: he had yet to take his eyes off the four-year-old in front of them. She was sprawled out with Clint and Tasha in the grass in front of the picnic table where Steph and Tony were both catching up and keeping an eye on the heavily enchanted briefcase that had been the impetus for their visit. Steph hadn’t been sure how her daughter would respond to meeting two relative strangers at the same time, but Sarah had been utterly thrilled to meet Bucky’s Tasha at last, and her endorsement combined with the sheer breadth of Clint’s knowledge of both Quidditch and Hogwarts had won the little one over in no time at all. Tony’s eyebrow shot up as the caught a fragment of the other conversation: Sarah was narrating the Voyage of Bran mac Feabhail while Tasha conjured the appropriate illustrations and Clint supplied sound effects.

“I take it she and the half-blood prince are still getting on, then.”

That much was obvious- even if she hadn’t been trying to impress Tasha, Sarah would have had trouble going four sentences without a ‘Bucky says’ or ‘Me’n Bucky are gonna’- but Steph knew what Tony was trying not to ask.

“You’d never guess he doesn’t know.”

Sometimes she wondered- but he had yet to say a word, and Fury was still dead against Steph ever broaching the subject.

“He’s so gone for that girl, Tony- I don’t think he’s told her ‘no’ one time in her whole life- and of course Sarah would sell the giant squid to the highest bidder for one good word from her special darling.”

Tony smirked.

“Like mother; like daughter, is that what you’re saying?”

Steph’s smile dimmed even as she nodded.

“Something like that.”

Bucky would never hold her choices against Sarah, that much Steph knew for sure, but every day she held back felt like another reason he would never be able to trust her again once it all came out. Tony, unfortunately, read Steph’s whole train of thought in her numb expression.

“You need to tell him, sweetheart.”

In point of fact, Steph thought so too- had thought so, in fact, from the time Sarah, nine months old and miserable with colic, had put her poor dear head down on her father’s shoulder and fallen asleep with one tiny hand still fisted in his robes while Bucky held her close with a kind of awe plain on his face.

“It’s too dangerous, Tony.”

“Quidditch is dangerous, Steph, but we still let the kids play.”

Stephanie looked away.

“Yeah, well. Quidditch isn’t gonna break both their hearts when Schmidt comes back and he has to leave again.”

Tony drew in a sharp breath, not having expected Steph to speak quite so plainly even in the relative seclusion of the semi-private park Clint had chosen for their meeting.

“Are we still singing _that_ song?”

Steph crossed her arms.

“You think Zemo’s tearing up Alexandria because he’s looking into archaeology as his next career?”

Tony raised both hands in mock surrender.

“Fine, point taken. I’m just saying.”

He dropped his arms, covering Steph’s hands with one of his on the table between them. “I’d want to know, if it were me.”

That was a layered ‘if’ if Steph had ever heard one.

“Look, I can’t just-“

“Mam! Mam!”

The tension between them evaporated as Sarah threw herself at Steph, beaming from ear to ear. “Look, Tasha made us match!”

She almost lost her balance entirely trying to look at her own hair, which Tasha had charmed so that Sarah’s dark hair was shot through with a gleaming silver streak. Tony reached to steady her, smiling almost shyly when Sarah launched herself backwards so she could throw her arms around him.

“Tony! D’you like my Tasha hair?”

He did, Tony assured her readily, swallowing a yelp when Sarah stomped on his thigh as she whirled back around to face her mother. “Can we make it green too, you think?”

Steph laughed.

“Sure, if you really want.”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t think we were raising this kid _that_ Irish.”

Sarah laughed gaily.

“Not green like a leprechaun, green an’ silver for Slytherin! Bucky’s gonna be their head, you know, when grumpy old Erik goes away back home.”

“That’s so much worse,” Tony moaned, which only made Sarah grin more broadly. Tasha smirked at him as she and Clint resumed their seats.

“Entirely her idea,” she assured him, sneaking a sip from Clint’s tall lager glass. “But I do approve completely. Well done, Stephanie.”

“Thanks,” Steph murmured, already working Sarah’s tangled mane into a sleek bright-streaked plait.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Tony decided. “Don’t tell him anything, Rogers. At all. Ever again.”

Steph patted his knee consolingly.

“Drink your beer, Tony.”


	10. july (Sarah aged seven)

“Bucky? You in here?”

“No,” the potions master growled. “Go away, noisy thing.”

Sarah clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggling.

“I’m not,” she whispered, edging around the cauldron over which Bucky was still hunched. He had already moved to make room for her, so she ducked under his arm and leaned comfortably into his side. “I’m a quiet thing, see?”

“I suppose,” Bucky conceded, not too grudgingly. He didn’t smile right away- you had to work for that, with him- but let his arm drop so he had Sarah in a loose sideways hug. Still smiling widely, she peered into the murky depths in front of them.

“What is it?”

“Wolfsbane potion.”

“For Uncle Bruce?”

He raised an eyebrow without looking away from his work.

“Have  _you_ seen any other werewolves running around recently?” 

Sarah nudged him reproachfully.

“How’m I supposed to know, when it’s not full moon?”

Bucky’s lips turned up at last.

“Fair point.”

Sarah nodded seriously, because it was, then risked a half-step closer to watch the dark purple-grey bubbles dragging lethargically through the potion to pop at its smooth, shiny surface.

“It’s all blurbly.”

“So it is. Mind the fire, a rúnsearc.”

Sarah returned dutifully to his side.

“A rúnsearc,” she echoed, enjoying the strange edges of the new word in her mouth. “What’s a- that?”

“A rúnsearc,” Bucky said again, still focused on the potion. It was a tricky one, mam said- only the best brewers had any chance of getting it right, and even they had to practice a whole lot to get there. “My secret dear.” 

That sounded right, Sarah decided- nearly everything Bucky did was at least partly secret. He only ever came to upstairs dinner when he  _had_ to, like for the Sorting or the leaving feast, and when he did he got all prickly and never talked to anyone, but down in the kitchens he always made sure Sarah got the best bits of the leftovers and found ways to sneak her mam hot chocolate no matter what time it was. His students were so scared of Professor Barnes that even the Gryffindor final-years stayed quiet and kept their spaces tidy in his class, but he’d been Sarah’s teacher practically since she was born and only ever raised his voice, even, if she was in immediate danger of catching fire or getting transfigured. Even his name was a little bit secret- most people called him Professor, or Barnes, and Tasha always called him James, but Sarah and her mam were the only ones in the world, Bucky said, who were allowed to call him that. Sarah tilted her head, feeling out a half-formed thought.

“Is my mam your rúnsearc too?”

He went all stiff for a second, but then turned and kissed Sarah’s ear.

“If she ever wants to be she’ll have first choice after you. Give me a second here.”

He put down the glass rod he’d been using to stir Bruce’s potion and stood with his wand already in his hand. He was always so quick, Sarah thought, taking two big steps away like her mam said she had to when grown-ups were casting nearby. It was only a stasis spell, though, which Bucky had already told her was just for making sure he could keep things on the fire without staying up all night to make sure they didn’t spill everywhere or burn the whole castle down.

“There,” he murmured, tucking his wand away so he could tug Sarah into a hug. “Now. Why aren’t you in bed, little miss?”

She shrugged, nestling up to him so her cheek pressed into the elaborate folds of his embroidered cloak. Tasha must have brought it, Sarah decided, that time she’d come back from Russia with the evil necklace for Aunty Carter. It was only dark-grey-on-black, quiet like Bucky liked, but he would never have chosen anything so  _fancy_  just on his own.

“You didn’t come see us yesterday.”

She’d waited all evening, after Aunty had told them Bucky was home, but there’d been no sign of him then or the next day. Sarah’s mam had promised that he was fine, and would be along as soon as he could, but when  _two_ bedtimes had passed without even one mock-glare followed by a wink and a secret smile Sarah had decided to make sure for herself. “I thought maybe you were sick, or something.”

Bucky tucked Sarah close again, one of his big hands brushing gently through her hair.

“I’m sorry. I just- had too much to do all at the same time, you know?”

“Because of the wolfsbane?”

“Partly.”

Bruce had said told Sarah, that time he’d had to miss her birthday because of it, that he was very sorry, but the full moon didn’t make exceptions even for dear little girls- so it made a kind of sense that Bucky had to work around it sometimes too. Sarah giggled in spite of her self-imposed quietness; her companion raised an eyebrow instead of asking what had set her off.

“You’re not a little girl,” Sarah explained, laughing harder when Bucky’s other eyebrow zinged up to join the first. “I mean- ooh, look!”

A translucent silver crow had come swooping in; it circled the cauldron curiously before landing on Bucky’s shoulder.  

“Great Hall,” the patronus said in Tasha’s voice. “Now, please.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Yes, Mistress. Right away, Mistress.”

The crow nipped his cheek, but affectionately, before taking wing again.

“Wow,” Sarah murmured, then jerked upright in surprise as the words registered. “Are they  _here_? Now?”

Normally they knew weeks in advance when Tony and the others were coming. Bucky swished his wand to dim the lights.

“Sounds like it. C’mon, then: I’d better go get that girl before she sets old Nick on fire.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Sarah protested after a minute or two- she’d decided that right away, but couldn’t seem to shake the image of Aunty Carter dumping the flaming headmaster in the lake for his own good. “Would she?”

Bucky shrugged.

“Depends what stupid thing he’s said to her this time.”

Sarah’s laughter echoed in the empty hallway, startling a suit of armour so much that it snapped to attention with a clang; she watched delightedly, still giggling, while Bucky turned all the way around to glare at it. Because he was the best, of all, except maybe her mam, Sarah turned mid-stride and wrapped her arms around his waist.  

“I love you,” she announced, just in case he didn’t know. Bucky raised an eyebrow, acting like he didn’t care much, but cupped her head with one of his quick-gentle hands.   

“Do you? This whole time I thought you hung around down here because you liked the dark.”

“You’re silly,” Sarah grumbled, tracing a dark swirl of embroidery with one finger. Her eyes slipped shut, just for a second, as his warm fingers stroked her cheek.

“Only with you, Sarah-bell. Straight to bed, now, all right?”  

“I wanted to come see Tasha, though.”

“It’s going to be all grown-up stuff,” Bucky demurred, pulling a face to show that Sarah wasn’t missing much. She pouted, which usually won at least a small concession, but he just pressed her closer for a second before shoving her gently in the direction she needed to go. “We’ll tell you the important bits in the morning anyway.”

“An’ you’ll make Tasha and Clint come say hi before they go?”

“Even if I have to lead them at wand-point,” he agreed. “Good night, sweet girl.”

Sarah made it nearly all the way back where she was supposed to go before curiosity- and that persistent mental picture of Nick Fury’s robes all lit up while Tasha laughed at him- won out over filial piety. By the time she had snuck up around the back, peering in behind the High Table the way her mam did sometimes when she wanted to check on the students without actually joining in, Bucky was bent over some small glowy thing in a black velvet box.

“-not one of ours by any stretch.”

“No.”

Sarah’s mam leaned over his arm to look with him. “The runes are Scandinavian.”

“Old Norse,” Tony nodded. He looked very serious, for him. “They call it the Tesseract- Barton thinks it’s a kind of resurrection stone.”

Clint took over there, using big long words that tumbled from his mouth too fast for Sarah to follow. Since it was boring grown-up stuff and Bucky would tell her the good bits later if there were any, Sarah concentrated on watching the way her mam stood just by her Bucky, so close their hands almost brushed, and how Tony’s eyes kept darting over and then flitting back to the glowy stone as his frown got deeper and deeper.

“You want him to _what_?”

Startled, Sarah followed Tasha’s voice to find her suddenly standing between Bucky and Tony, one hand protectively over his arm. “No. That’s idiotic even for you.”

“It could work,” Bruce objected, already quiet and tired as the full moon approached. Sarah thought Tasha looked like she was the one who might grow fangs soon.

“I didn’t say it wouldn’t work- I said it’s idiotic, and I won’t allow it.”

“Tasha,” Bucky said quietly; she turned round and put both hands flat on his shoulders.

“James. You’ll have _both_ sides after your blood.” 

Sarah shrank back, just a bit- she didn’t think she liked it when _Tasha_ sounded scared. Bucky still looked pretty calm, though.

“What choice do we have? If they already know the damn thing’s right here-“

“It’s less of a risk than you think,” Aunty Carter cut in softly. “And your place in their inner circle will be secured- you know they look after their own.”

“Yes,” Tasha spat. “With _cruciatus_ and _imperio_ , and that’s when they _like_ the poor soul.”

“I’m not sure you understand,” the headmaster began, but Tasha never let him finish.

“No. You’re the one who doesn’t understand. Bozhe moi, why don’t you save us the heartache and just kill him here?”

“What?” Sarah stumbled forwards before she even realized she’d left her watching-spot. “No!”

“Sarah!”

Her mam caught her in an almost-angry cuddle, but Sarah didn’t have time to worry about getting into trouble for bursting in.

“What’s going on? Where’re they making you go?”

She turned to glare at the headmaster. “You can’t send him away again- he only just got back.”

“Wait,” Tony frowned, hands on his hips like her mam that time Clint had flown in from a storm and dripped a whole puddle onto their rug. “Why does the eight-year-old know anything about that?”

“She's seven,” Bucky drawled, making his way over to stand with them. “And I don’t make a habit of lying to the kid, Stark.”

“No,” Tony shot back in a nasty kind of growl. “Who would do a thing like that?”

“Tony-”

Sarah winced: that was her mam’s grounding voice. When she and Tony got like this they could argue for hours, though, so she grabbed Bucky’s hand in both of hers to secure his attention.

“I don’t want you to go.”

He brushed his hand over her hair and along her shoulder.

“I know, sweetheart.”

“Tasha doesn’t want you to go, either.”

“No,” he agreed. “But she knows I have to, right, and anyway I’m almost sure she’s going to find a way to come with me, just in case I need back-up.”

Sarah glanced over at her mam, still deep in her whispered disagreement with Tony.

“Maybe you should borrow my mam too. Just in case.”  

Bucky bent to kiss her forehead.

“She’s gotta stay with you, though, so you can both look after each other and the castle while we’re gone.”

Sarah clutched at his shoulders, trying to anchor him to the ground like Tasha had done before, so he couldn’t get swept away again.

“Do you _have_ to go? Right now, today?”

Tasha’s fingers came down to cover Sarah's.

“I’m afraid so,” she said, gentle like she only got when she was talking to Bucky. Sarah clutched him just a little tighter.

“But you’ll come back after.”

“Don’t I always?”

It wasn’t enough, Sarah thought- somehow it seemed important to make him say it a bit more like he really meant it.

“You promise?”

Bucky hugged her close, leaning his cheek against Sarah’s hair.

“Cross my heart, a rúnsearc.”

His voice was all warm, soft just for her; this time, Sarah knew she could believe him.

“Fine,” she muttered reluctantly. Bucky kissed her hair before he let her go.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “Poor tired thing. Will you let your mam put you to bed, now, or what?” 

This time, with a whole room of grown-ups looking on in agreement, Sarah had no choice but to comply. She knew for sure that her mam was worried too when she curled up with Sarah in the big bed instead of sending her to her own room. Sarah hid her face in her mother’s silky night-dress.

“Can’t someone else go? Why’s it have to be him all the time?”

Her mam sighed, slow and soft, like when Clint and Tony started the same argument for the third time in one outing.

“Because he’s the best, isn’t he?”

Sarah nodded reluctantly, struggling to stay awake because it was important.

“Tasha won’t let anyone get him.”

She’d probably set them all on fire, just for trying. Her mam kissed her forehead like Bucky had done before.

“She’ll bring him home,” she agreed, but Sarah wasn’t sure that was the same at all.

“You do,” she decided, curling her fingers around her mam’s clenched fist. “Want to be, I mean. After me.”

They'd have to tell him, she thought, after he and Tasha got home safe. Her mam gave a quiet murmur of inquiry, but Sarah was asleep before she could explain.


	11. april (Sarah aged eight)

It had finally happened, Tony realized. He’d gone that one half-step too far, and unless Natasha Romanova got there first James Barnes was going to murder him right there in Peggy Carter’s office.

“We don’t have time for this.”

Tony laughed; it was too high and a little sharp. His hand clenched tighter around the box he was meant to be handing over.

“What’s the rush? They’ve been hanging around for eight _years_.”

“Yes,” Romanova snapped. “Until _your headmaster_ told us to offer them an opportunity they are not willing to miss, which is precisely why we can’t afford to keep them _hanging around_.”

She’d always been intense, but there was something about her eyes since Azkaban that Tony didn’t like to think about if he could help it. It wasn’t the only reason he kept wondering if they should really let Sarah hang around with her unsupervised, but it didn’t help. “Baron Zemo isn’t known for his patience, you’ll recall.”

“No, he’s known for a series of hate crimes that all ended in mass murder. You should remember that- weren’t you _there with him_ for some of them?”

“Stark,” Barnes interjected before Romanova could either defend herself or settle on the curse of her choice. “You can list all the ways you despise us when we get back. I don't know what your problem is- this whole god-damned charade was your idea, remember?”

“Was it?”

Somehow, he hadn’t stopped to wonder before.

“Yes,” Romanova answered for her friend. “Or Fury’s, I suppose- but it definitely wasn’t either of ours.”

“That’s convenient,” Tony drawled; Steph frowned.

“It’s really not, Tony. At all, for anyone.”

The longing in her voice, even after everything that had happened since, was the final crack in an already crumbling dam.

“You say that, but how do we know- really know, I mean- that they haven’t been playing us from the start?”

Barnes laughed, coldly dismissive.

“Because we’re Slytherin, is that it? It’s like you still think we’re fifteen.”

He turned to Peggy, caught between accusing and pleading. “You could stand to remind this genius that Tasha did _a year in_ _Azkaban_ to keep _his_ friend alive.”

“Yes,” Tony muttered, eyes widening as the fragmentary inklings that had been needling at him for years came together at last to form a terrifyingly coherent picture. “To bring us a mangled prophecy that took half our best people out of commission only to lead right back to Steph. Convenient, like I said.”

“What?”

Even Carter looked confused now. Tony shook his head, relentless because he was almost sure that he was making sense.

“Think about it. They had him so far out-field that we never even saw him for three _years_ , then he shows up out of nowhere, and not six months later they give us just enough information to drag us all out in defence of Reed and Sue- but then Ben says it was Steph they wanted all along, and when it all falls apart they decide the logical thing is to send him back here. Fury says we’re letting him keep an eye on them for us, but what’s to say he’s not really working the other way around?”

He was a good actor, at least- Barnes shot Romanova an impatient look.

“Did you hit him with _confundus_ , or what?”

“It wasn’t _me_ ,” she shrugged, as if to say it could easily have been Steph, or maybe Peggy Carter. Steph herself was white to the lips already, though, and it only took Barnes a second to notice. Tony fought the urge to hex his fingers off as they wrapped, gentle as a prayer, around Stephanie’s wrist.

“Do _you_ know what this is about?”

“Just Tony being Tony, I guess.”

Steph was angry, he could tell, but she had to know hers was the most precarious position after that outburst. Her eyes begged him to cooperate, but Tony really wasn’t sure he should.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, sweetheart, but it seems pretty damn neat that we’re gift-wrapping the only thing we know of that can bring that bastard back and _asking_ him to take it to them.”

She glared as fiercely as she ever had.

“Which is his fault how? We were all right here, and it was _your idea_.”

"Yeah, by that point."

They were at a stalemate, after all- Tony, Clint and Tasha had destroyed four of the horcruces Strucker knew of; the Death Eaters already had the other three. The best way to make certain that they really finished things, then, would seem to be to let Zemo do whatever it was he wanted to bring the available half of their head honcho back to life so the good guys could kill it dead before the Death Eaters realised there was no second half to be found. Unless, Tony was only just now realizing, it was a mistake to assume that seven was the total number in the first place given that they only had Barnes's word for it.

“But they’ve played a long game so far, right? Isn’t it possible that he-“

He couldn’t help the way his hands clenched, almost possessively, and she couldn’t help but take offence.

“ _What,_ Tony? Slept with me on Schmidt’s orders?”

Tony was almost sure Barnes was literally going pale behind her, but Steph was out for blood, now. “You think _the Red Skull_ gave his pal a night off to hook up with his mudblood ex in case Franklin came out too Hufflepuff to be of any use, is that it?”

_“What?”_

That was Carter, glancing between Barnes and Steph with unmixed horror on her face. Neither of them noticed- they were already too busy staring each other down- but Tasha drew herself up, as cool and sharp as broken glass.

“What, is he not good enough for one of yours?”

“No,” Carter objected, but Tasha could be relentless too.

“Let the Death Eaters take him to pieces as often as it takes, sure, but god forbid one of your _brave Gryffindor girls_ ever see anything more than a-”

“Tasha! Is that really what you think of me after-”

The door to her office slammed- Barnes was gone, and Steph- of course- had followed.

“Funny,” Tony muttered to no one in particular. “That’s how I remember this the last time round, too.”

* * *

“Bucky, hey-“

This time he turned to face her, not with the tired resignation of eight years earlier but with a kind of devastated anger.

“Is _that_ why you never told me?”

Steph felt her knees go weak. Seeing her stumble, Bucky jerked his head towards the stone bench that overlooked first the Quidditch pitch and then the grounds beyond.

“At first I thought it was him you were trying not to tell,” he muttered, eyes on the lake in the middle distance. Steph stared hard at her hands.

“How long’ve you-“

“Suspected,” Bucky offered. “Hoped, maybe-until she laid the geis on me, anyway.”

He smiled faintly when Steph’s head snapped up in shock.

“Last year, remember- she made me promise to come back.”

She did remember that- it had struck her as unusual, given that even as a kid Bucky had known not to give his formal word if he could help it, but it would hardly have been the first time he’d gone out of his way for Sarah’s sake.

“Were you testing her or yourself?”

She couldn’t have said which of them she felt more protective of, but he just shrugged.

“She was scared- Tasha shouldn’t have been talking like that with her around.”

He said it like it was obvious- naturally he’d invoked ancient, mostly-secret promise rites just to set a seven-year-old’s mind at ease.  “It wasn’t any kind of risk, anyway- he had to let me come back here if they were gonna take the bait.”

Bucky never talked about the fact that it was always someone else’s call.

“You never said anything.”

He turned to meet her eyes then.

“Neither did you.”

Which was, and always had been, the crux of it.

“I’m sorry,” Steph breathed. It was strange, even surreal, to be able to say the words that had been on her lips for years. “I’m so sorry. Bucky, I should’ve told you the first day we got you back.”

He didn’t disagree.

“I figure I must have told you to take them. The memories, I mean- so he couldn’t get to you?”

If it had been anything else, he must have reasoned, Steph would never have let him get so close to the kid Tony sometimes implied she should be protecting from him. She nodded mutely, almost envious of Bucky’s total inability to relive the moment with her. He nodded too, but seemed less sure of her guilt. “I don’t think you can do that spell, even, without express permission. And then by the time it was all over you were with Stark, and Tasha and I were a complete shambles, and-“

“I wasn’t ever _with_ Stark-“ she paused, blinking. “With Tony, I mean. We had to say that because of that bloody prophecy, and then- god, can you even imagine what the Ministry would have done to you if they thought you could stop the killing curse without even showing up?”

Bucky flinched so hard it shook them both; belatedly, Steph realised he couldn’t possibly have guessed that that was how things had unfolded. She let her fingertips graze his arm in a silent apology, but pressed on “So we let Fury tell everyone it was all on him, and I _knew_ you hated what you thought I’d done but there wasn’t any good way to tell you it was all a sham without giving too much away before it was safe, and then-”

“And then she was all grown up and god knows how it’s been this many years.”

He sounded so deeply fond that Steph knew he understood.

“I wanted to tell you. All the time, Bucky, but-“

“But you couldn’t be sure.”

His expression was rueful, his voice a little hard. “I guess that means I’m doing my job right, then, doesn’t it?”

Steph caught her husband’s hands and held them tight between them in the way that was traditional. “Maybe _they_ couldn’t be sure. James, I-“

“Don’t,” he protested, already pulling away. “Steph, it’s not-“

“I promise,” Steph blurted out. Bucky went completely rigid, but he had no say in it anymore:  the words were given, wholly meant, and if she spoke falsely after that it might well be enough to kill her. Steph smiled, wishing she’d cornered him years earlier. “I swear, all right? There’s only you, and there’s only ever been you, and I know I should have told you right away, okay, but your daughter and I both know damn well that you’d die before you hurt her no matter whose kid she was.”

The promise was its own fulfillment: Steph laughed shakily as the ancient roots of it took hold as if to bind her magic to her husband’s in acknowledgment. Bucky’s eyes were wide as he let go of her hands to draw her close.

“Stupid girl,” he grumbled; his voice shook with the force of his relief. “Didn’t your mam ever teach you not to make promises to people who have ways to make you keep them?”

“No. She taught me not to make promises I wasn’t gonna keep whether or not someone was there to make me.”

His eyes kept dropping to her lips. Steph remembered, almost too vividly, the first time he’d kissed her, out in the rain when they’d been barely sixteen and much too sure that they were safe.

“Steph-“

“Hush,” she whispered, and kissed her husband for the first time since their wedding night. “I love you, you know that?”

“Sure. You promised, even.”

Bucky stiffened when Steph went for her wand, but even after everything he’d seen out there on the other side he stayed right there and watched her touch its tip to the necklace she hadn’t taken off in years.

“Twice, you know.”

His fingers closed around the rings they’d hardly had one night to wear.

“You’ll have to show me one day.”

Steph let her hand creep up his neck and promised herself she’d never, ever, make him wait again.

“Soon, Bucky.”

If Fury and Carter were to be believed, it might all be over in a matter of weeks. “You go get this done, okay, and as soon as we know that bastard’s gone for good we’ll make things right.”

That made him smile for real: it was a tender, dreaming smile like she hadn’t seen in more than a decade.

“You’ll let me take you home. Both of you.”

Steph had wondered, sometimes, whether it was because he was _aos sí_ or just because he was Bucky, but even as a teenager he’d always missed the homeland like it was a friend he’d been forced to leave behind, and never looked quite as at peace as when they were back there.

“Sure. That same day, if you want.”

She was still watching his face, lost in the disbelieving quirk of his lips, when Tasha stepped out of Peggy’s office with the Tesseract already in hand.

“Let’s go,” she barked without preamble. “That idiot’s liable to change his mind again if we let him catch his breath.”  

“Okay,” Bucky murmured, crushing Steph’s hand between his own before he stood. “Let’s go get this done, then.”

Steph let herself smile.

“Be careful out there.”

Tasha rolled her eyes like she couldn’t believe Steph would waste her breath on that kind of vapid well-wish. Bucky’s huff of reproach was pure affection.

‘You’ll tell that girl I love her.”

Maybe it should have meant more, now that they both knew what they both knew, but in this regard at least Steph wasn’t sure anything had changed at all.

“She’s known that her whole life, Buck.”

He winked, very nearly rakish.

“Tell her anyway.”

She would, Steph said, and steeled herself to watch her husband walk away _again._


	12. the return (june, Sarah aged eight)

“Traitor,” the Red Skull hissed. His wand twitched; this time, Bucky stayed down. The corridor was silent except for the pelting of the rain outside and the distant pounding of someone running. The dark lord laughed, genuinely amused. “They’re too late. Poor James- your friends will always be too late.”

“Bucky!”

The green light flashed; Steph felt her own knees hit the ground just as Tony’s free hand closed hard around her arm.

“Riddikulus!”

The scene in front of them shifted: Steph’s daughter threw herself at her father’s prone form, shrieking with laughter as she tickled him with warlike determination. Behind them, Tasha Romanova raised the wand that had been trained on Bucky to restore her own face. The scene faded just as Bucky sat up at last, drawing a delighted squeal from the Sarah before Tony locked the cupboard with a very final flick of his own wand.

“Jeez.”

He hauled her back onto her feet and into a quick, affectionate embrace. “Call yourself a Defence teacher- besides which that was heavy even for you, Rogers.”

“Sorry,” Steph muttered, more shaken than she wanted to admit. It wasn’t just the boggart- her nightmares had taken a turn for the avada-kedavric ever since Bucky had delivered the Tesseract as instructed. Strucker was well pleased, he had reported in the grim-faced, dull-eyed way that meant only Tasha would ever know what he had had to do to keep them happy; Zemo would let the others know when they were needed. He’d been his usual self since they’d got him back, surer than ever of his place in Steph’s life and never less than wholly affectionate with Sarah, but Steph knew without having to ask that Bucky was already steeling himself for what had to follow.  
“Thanks, Tony.”

“What’ve I said about that? Honestly, sometimes it’s like you don’t treasure every word I say to you." 

Tony was prepared to distract her completely with easy chatter about the fifth-years Bruce had caught making out in his medical store, but before he could say anything else Steph went rigid in his arms.

“No,” she whispered, eyes fixed on some distant point. “No, _no_ , Bucky-“

She blinked, once, twice, and then pulled away from Tony with a painful-sounding gasp. “I have to go. Tony, I’m pretty sure he’s-“

She took off towards the dungeons at a run.

“Yeah,” Tony muttered, making a deliberate effort not to pout in the empty corridor. “You go get your man, Steph.”

He spared one last locking charm, because the last thing they needed was a literal scaremonger knocking about downstairs while they were waiting specifically for the news that an erstwhile Dark Lord had come back to life, then holstered his wand and sprinted after his supposed wife.

It was immediately clear that things were at least as bad as Steph had suspected: the sixth year potions lesson was still in session, but the students grating pickled eye of something-vile with horrified fascination were doing so under the watchful eye of Peggy Carter instead of their regular teacher.

“Ah,” the deputy head smiled, as serene as if Tony had stepped through for tea instead of bursting through the doors disheveled and out of breath. “On time as always, Tony.”

A couple of students sniggered; Tony offered the Gryffindor side of the room a grin and a wink mostly on the strength of muscle memory. Peggy pinched the bridge of her nose. “The others are in Professor Barnes’s office, if you’d like to join them.”

They were in fact all there, Barnes and Romanova already suffering visibly while Bruce and Clint argued about whether a nerve-numbing tonic would have any effect. Stephanie shook her head, agitated.

“It doesn’t work like that, Clint. Don’t you think they’d’ve tried that by now?”

Her husband, sitting on the floor in front of her like a kid, leaned back so his temple rested against her knee. Tony tried not to stare as Steph’s hand found its way into his hair, somehow both perfectly casual and alarmingly intimate.

“That’s better,” she said quietly as Barnes let his eyes fall shut with an exhausted-sounding groan. “Just hang on, both of you. It can’t last much longer.”

“He’s really back,” Tony realized. “It’s his mark that’s hurting them?”

Romanova raised her head specifically to roll her bloodshot eyes at him.

“Did you imagine it was menstrual cramps?”

She subsided, just a little, when Barnes let one of his hands drop over hers.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, but the softening of her voice made it clear that she was apologizing to her friend rather than to Tony. He must have asked her to play nice, Tony thought, and felt strangely touched that Barnes would bother to make that kind of effort on his account. “It’s just-“

“I know,” Barnes assured her. Steph said nothing, which Tony suspected was because she was quite close to tears. It would have been understandable even if he hadn’t just watched her witness her own worst nightmare playing out in brilliant, too-plausible technicolour in the castle hallway.

“Hey,” he said, going for the kind of Gryffindor bravado that would both cheer Clint up and grate on Romanova’s last Slytherin nerve enough to take her mind off any other pain. “It’s not like we didn’t know this was coming, is it?”

Clint caught on first: he grinned appreciatively, then nudged Natasha with his elbow because he was a much, much braver man than Tony had ever been.

“You have to give him that much, Nat.”

“I’d rather give him lockjaw,” she muttered, but Tony thought she looked slightly more relaxed. Clint must have agreed, because he kept right on going in the same bright voice.

“Really, though. Imagine finding out after ten years of this-“ he knew better than to put a name to it, but Tony saw Clint’s eyes flit between Steph hand on Barnes’s pale cheek and Tasha’s white-knuckled grip on her wand- “only to find out that Fury’s just a crazy person and Schmidt’s been dead and gone this whole time. That would suck _way_ worse than actually dealing with this, wouldn’t it?”

He paused. “I mean, not in general- for everyone else it would be great- but for us it would suck a _lot_.”

There was a momentary silence, not so much awkward as openly baffled, while the others thought that over. It was broken by the unnerving sound of Tasha Romanova’s wild, surprisingly musical laughter.

“You’re an idiot,” she informed Clint very confidently. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time, apart from that plan where we _gave them_ the means to bring the bastard back.”

Quite unexpectedly, she darted forward and kissed his cheek. “You’re an original, Clint Barton. I’ve always liked that.”

Tony was still trying to process that sensory overload when Carter’s brisk tripartite knock announced that she had dismissed the class outside. She had also, they found out as soon as the door swung open, picked up both Fury and Sarah.

“Tasha!”

Steph’s daughter shot Carter a reproachful look. “You didn’t say they were all here.”

She put her arms around Natasha first, but Tony was almost sure she hugged him longest. Stephanie patted the seat next to her, but didn’t look at all surprised when Sarah shook her head resolutely and dropped to the floor to sit halfway on top of Barnes instead. The kid was too bright by half, Tony thought with pride as Sarah’s exuberant smile dimmed with understanding.

“You’re going to go away again,” she realised. Barnes turned and caught the little girl in a fierce embrace. Sarah squeaked in surprise, but put both arms around his neck, hugging him back with all her strength while Steph steadied both of them with gentle hands.

“Later,” Tony heard himself bark when the headmaster opened his mouth like he couldn’t see Barnes fighting for some semblance of control over too many different emotions. It was a sad, _sad_ state of affairs when _he_ was the one preaching emotional sensitivity. “Give the man a minute, will you? For god’s sake, Fury.”

He wondered if it was the first time Natasha Romanova had ever looked at him with something like approval in her electric eyes. Tony wasn’t sure he liked it, exactly, but it was much better than when she looked at him like she would have cursed him five times over already if it wouldn't have been such a waste of magic. He winked as audaciously as he knew how and didn't even grumble when she hexed him for it. 


	13. tests (july, Sarah aged eight)

“James,” the Red Skull murmured in his new, softly sibilant voice. Bucky swept a scraping, ostensibly devoted bow, and prayed that every happy memory he had of Sarah and her mother was safely buried under the potion recipes he had been reciting to himself for hours in preparation for this meeting. “Zemo says it was you who brought the Tesseract to his attention.”

Bucky nodded, eyes on the brocade edging of Schmidt’s robe.

“The school was a good choice,” he volunteered; Strucker and Zemo preened. “Hufflepuffs are always so eager to forgive a repentant sinner.”

His lip curled; it wasn’t entirely an act. “And Gryffindors seem to believe that _anyone_ can be remade in their image if they just apply enough _enthusiasm_.”

Schmidt laughed, understanding and appreciative. Bucky stayed absolutely still as the dark lord took hold of his chin like a reproachful parent.

“There are some who believe you were prepared to choose against us.”

Bucky could only imagine- he had been safe at the heart of the school while any number of the others had been in prison, on the run, or worse. He made a show of hesitating to meet the dark lord’s eyes.

“My Lord, I-”

The attack was immediate and unrelenting- Schmidt’s magic ripped through Bucky’s mind like acid, seeking the deception he had to suspect. Bucky put up enough resistance to make Schmidt think he was ashamed of how deeply he still cared for the girl who had once loved him, but otherwise the Red Skull saw only what he wanted to- a decade of loneliness in a life unlived except for the cause. Schmidt chose to linger, just longer than necessary, on Bucky’s first sight of Stark’s new family- the shock of seeing Stephanie with her young child overlapping with the bitter awareness that his boyhood rival had yet again bulldozed his way to everything he wanted.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispered, letting his eyes drop as if humiliated. “You were right.”

“Of course,” the dark lord agreed. He raised his wand; Bucky never heard the curse. He was dimly aware of the others laughing, but for the most there was only the pain that seemed sure to tear him apart- until Schmidt let him up more or less intact.

“The mudblood chose the Gryffindor,” Schmidt informed the group. “The boy was not involved with her when Zola struck his deal with Grimm.”

The Red Skull smiled, entirely approving, when Bucky stiffened in surprise- somehow, in eight _years_ , no one had thought to tell him about that. “Rumlow.”

The former Quidditch star, some years Bucky’s senior, paled as the dark lord took aim at the centre of his chest. The death eaters in his immediate vicinity scattered quickly. “Would you care to repeat your accusations?”

“No! Forgive me, my Lord. I must have been mistaken.”

“Good. We will face enough resistance without turning on our own.”

Rumlow bowed low.

“Rise,” Schmidt ordered softly; Bucky staggered obligingly to his feet. “James Barnes been tried.”

It had the weight of a formal pardon. The dark lord’s voice hardened. “We will not hear another word against him.”

Bucky knew to keep his face calm and his eyes unflinchingly open while Rumlow thrashed and screamed. It was almost merciful, for the Red Skull- when his supporters had been at their strength Bucky had seen Schmidt kill people for much less. He was still staring fixedly at the twitching wreck in front fo them when Schmidt patted his arm almost affectionately.

“That girl was a weakness of which you are well shot,” he told Bucky with the weary exasperation of a well-meaning uncle. “But on the whole you’ve done very well, James.”

He extended his hand as though in invitation; Bucky manage to smile instead of shuddering when the gloved hand found his cheek.

“Still such an innocent,” the Red Skull mused. “Poor young romantic- how _have_ you lived so long amidst our scorpions and vipers?”  

It was obvious that no answer was required, so Bucky lowered his eyes and waited for some more explicit cue.

“It is well noted,” Strucker informed the group. “Barnes is our brother.”

Bucky kept his head down, hoping his posture spoke of gratitude rather than complete and utter loathing.

“Thank you, my Lord.”

Both Schmidt and Strucker smiled; the trials continued.

“Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine, you may come forward.”

* * *

 

“No! I’m not going. I told you, I _hate_ Quidditch!”

A blur of black and green flashed past Stephanie before the door to her daughter’s room slammed hard. Peggy sank wearily into a chair.

“Well, now, that’s just not true, is it?”

Stephanie sighed.

“I’m sorry about her. She’s been a handful recently- more than usual, I mean.”

Peggy smiled tolerantly, waving her wand to bring their tea and biscuits to rest on the table between them. They both worked with teenagers for most of the year, after all; at least Sarah had good reasons for kicking up a fuss.

“She misses your James.”

Steph nodded, but she didn’t think Bucky’s unusually long absence was the only cause of Sarah’s present strop. He’d been gone before, after all, without prompting Sarah to give up everything that didn’t remind her explicitly of him.

“She’s a smart kid, you know? She can see that we’re not telling her everything, and she doesn’t like it.”

‘Resented it fiercely’ would have been more accurate, all the more because Sarah’s particular confidant had been so unceremoniously sent away.

“She’s not a little girl anymore.”

Stephanie’s scowl said very clearly that she didn’t need anyone to tell her that. Peggy refreshed their tea as a conciliatory gesture. “Have you considered telling her the rest?”

There was no judgment in the question; as usual, she asked with an educator’s lasting investment in her student’s best interests. Stephanie shrugged, uncharacteristically reluctant to look on the bright side.

“Somehow I don’t think that would make her worry _less_.”

It wasn’t only Sarah, Peggy saw with unhappy sympathy: Stephanie, too, was driving herself to distraction trying not to wonder what was going on in Schmidt’s camp.

“Are you still having those nightmares?”

Her former student nodded without meeting her eyes. “At least there’s some variety now, I guess. Used to be I only ever saw him die, but these days sometimes he gets tortured too.”

Peggy frowned. Nothing Stephanie had ever said suggested that she might be prone to divination, but in times like theirs it often paid to be overly cautious rather than not cautious enough.

“If this keeps up I’d like you to speak to the headmaster again.”

Stephanie made a vague, non-committal noise of assent.

“Stubborn as an ox,” Peggy grumbled, but she smiled when her former student did.

“That’s why you love us, isn’t it?”

“In part,” she admitted gamely. “Now. What are we going to do about your-“

“Mam! Tony’s map says Tasha’s here!”

Sarah was back, still tear-streaked from her tantrum of only minutes earlier but lit up now with hopeful anticipation. She was clutching the map that Peggy had only very recently discovered had been the bane of Stark’s student years, jabbing excitedly at the dot unmistakably labelled ‘Natalia Romanova.’ “Does that mean Bucky’s coming too?”

Steph tilted her head in Peggy’s direction by way of asking the same question.

“Not that I’ve heard.”

Nick did make appointments without letting her know, but those were very rarely on school grounds. Natasha’s dot was very close to Fury’s in his office, almost as though they were in some kind of embrace.

“We’d better go,” Peggy decided- it was rarely good news when Tasha Romanova chose to get within a wand’s length of anyone but James Barnes. Stephanie was already reaching for the Floo powder with one hand while the other pressed her daughter gently into the chair Peggy had just vacated.

“Give us a minute, all right? We’ll call you through once we make sure they’re not halfway through a duel.”

“Mam!”

Peggy had to hide a smile- Sarah looked just like her mother when she thought everyone around her was being unreasonable.

“Stay here, okay? I mean it, Sarah.”

She nodded, recognizing that her mother had no intention of moderating her stance. Peggy stepped through as Stephanie turned to kiss her daughter’s cheek the way she always did before leaving her for any length of time. They entered the headmaster’s office to find Natasha obviously deciding between _crucio_ and something worse.

“Tasha-”

Her hands were on Stephanie’s shoulders before Fury was fully aware that he had company.

“Say you didn’t know,” she begged. Natasha wasn’t just frightened- she was as near to real panic as Peggy had ever seen her. “He won’t survive it if you’ve been in on it with them all this while.”

Stephanie put her arms around Natasha without hesitation.

“I’m pretty sure I’m not in on anything with anyone,” she offered in a steady, placating tone. “You wanna tell me what we’re talking about so we can make sure?”

Tasha drew back; the look she threw at Nick Fury had enough venom in it to kill a bear.

“Ask him,” she hissed. “Ask your headmaster why the monster we brought back _on his orders_ thinks there’s one more horcrux left to destroy.”

Fury sighed the sigh of a man who had already gone over the same arguments, at wand-point no less, more than once.

“As I told you, we have-“

“You should also ask him why Strucker and Zemo agree that _your daughter_ is that horcrux, and what in god’s name he plans to do when they give James the job of killing her to prove one last time that he really has chosen them over you.”

Stephanie opened her mouth to answer, but no sound emerged. She was rooted to the spot, her hands still tight on Tasha’s forearms and her eyes locked not on Fury but on the fireplace behind his desk. Peggy spared a glance in that direction and felt her own blood chill at the sight of Sarah’s horrified face flickering there amidst the flames.


	14. horcrux

Sarah slammed the door behind her just as the others stepped back through the fire. She ran without knowing where she was going, her pounding footsteps too loud on the hard stone floors, and only stopped when she had nowhere else to go. Somehow she’d come to rest in the dungeons, safe in the small office where she’d seen him last.

“Go away,” she muttered when her mam knocked on Bucky’s door a minute or two later. They were wrong, she thought desperately- they had to be wrong. Sarah didn’t know what a horcrux was, even, but she was pretty sure Bucky wouldn’t hold it against her even if it was the worst thing in the world. She curled up in his chair, which was tall and hard-backed so he’d look scarier scolding his students, and wished he could be there with her instead of wherever it was they’d sent him that made _Tasha Romanova_ scared enough to cry. Sarah’s own tears got the better of her at the thought of that- she hadn’t thought anyone could make Tasha cry, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know about the people who could. She saw the doorknob turn as her mam tried and failed to open it.

“Sarah, honey. Please come out.”

Sarah scowled- _now_ they wanted to talk to her.

“I won’t,” she decided, swiping at her face to hide the tears that were making her voice so weak and scratchy. “I don’t want to talk to _you_.”

“Sarah,” her mam sighed, worried enough that Sarah almost wondered if she should change her mind. Before she could, the doorknob rattled hard enough to shake the jars in the adjoining cupboard.

“It won’t budge,” she heard Tony say- her head jerked up as she realized that they were worried enough that they’d already got Tony back from wherever _he_ had been. He was still struggling with the door. It must be pretty bad, then, being a horcrux. “How did she get in there? Is he even allowed to use blood wards _here_?”

“Tony,” Sarah’s mam grumbled, sounding tired; Sarah turned her face away. She was still scowling at the empty fireplace when it flared suddenly to life. Sarah scrambled backwards in the big chair while Tony apparently threw his whole self against the door in response to her yelp of surprise.

“Sarah! What’s going on? Open this door, will you?”

“Hooligan,” Bucky muttered, brushing soot out of his robes as he glared at the door. “Has been since he was eleven.”

His eyes, when they found Sarah’s, were soft and understanding. “No wonder you’re down here hi-”

Sarah threw herself at him, grateful and anguished and crying again- harder than she had known she could. He’d hate her now, she knew- he’d see that she wasn’t just noisy but a big stupid baby as well, and then he wouldn’t want anything to do with her at all even if she hadn’t been an awful thing. The door clicked open behind them- the wards recognized that their master was in possession of his own space again. Tony came tumbling in first, red-faced and annoyed, but Sarah only had eyes for Bucky.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, clawing at his clothes because she didn’t _want_ him to give her back to her mam and then go away and never ever come home again. “I’m sorry. Bucky, I’m sorry.”

He tried to pull away, but stopped when Sarah clung to him with a quiet sob of protest.

“Hey.”

His hand cupped her cheek, steady like the rock man in his old stories but not as sad. “I’m not going anywhere without you just yet.”

Sarah let go of him reluctantly, because Bucky at least never lied to her even when he didn’t like the truth, but felt better when he grabbed her hand at once. He dropped into his big chair, tugging Sarah with him so they could sit together like they had when she’d been little and couldn’t wait for him to get done with his essays and other teacher stuff.

“You’re okay,” he promised when she was pressed as close as she could get. “It’s going to be all right, sweet girl.”

“It’s not,” Sarah protested, hiding her face against his neck. “Tasha was crying an’ everything.”

She raised her head to fix him with a panicked, pleading look. “I don’t wanna be a horcrux anymore, Bucky.”

He went so still that Sarah would have thought someone had hexed him from behind if there had been anyone back there.

“For god’s sake,” Tony muttered; Bucky ignored him completely. One of his hands brushed through Sarah’s hair, working out the tangles in what had been a tidy braid before she’d taken off running.

“Who told you a thing like that?”

“Tasha said,” Sarah whispered. She thought it might be better not to mention that no one had been talking _to_ her, exactly, and hoped the others wouldn’t tell either. “She said they have to destroy ‘em all, and I’m the last one, and they want you to do it so they’ll know you like them best.”

She leaned into his chest, listening to the quick-angry rhythm of his heart as he rubbed her back with the hand that had been playing with her hair. “But you _don’t_ like them best, right, and you wouldn’t ever-“

Sarah’s voice was trembling, though- maybe now they knew she was a horcrux she couldn’t be his rúnsearc anymore, and he’d have to do it even if he didn’t want to.

“Bucky,” she whispered, closing her eyes like that might stop them all from seeing her big stupid baby tears. “Bucky, please don’t.”

He didn’t say anything for a second, but before she could panic he kissed her cheeks, one and then the other, and then her forehead.

“Never,” he whispered, and Sarah knew that it was true. She nodded sadly, resting her cheek against Bucky’s shoulder so she could look up at the others.

“Maybe Tony could do it,” she offered- he was pretty brave, she knew, and they only saw each other sometimes so it wouldn’t be as bad. “Or the headmaster?”

Bucky only crushed her closer.

“Sarah,” he said, close to angry but not quite. “ _No_ _one_ is going to hurt you while your mam and I have any say in the matter. Is that clear?”

Sarah frowned.

“But Tasha _said_ -“

“She’s only repeating what they told her. We’ve all been wrong before.”

“But what if-“

“It doesn’t matter. We’re going to keep you safe, Sarah.”

Sarah smiled at last- she liked it when he promised like that, with his voice all safe and warm and strong.

“Okay,” she said, just quietly for him, and kissed his cheek before she pressed her face into his neck and closed her eyes tight. “Thanks.”

He laughed, a little shaky, and let his cheek rest against her hair- until Tony slammed his fist down on the desk, startling Sarah badly enough that she bumped her head hard against Bucky’s poor face when she jumped.

“Stark,” Tasha hissed, but Tony wasn’t interested.

“No! Who the hell are you to tell a _child_ -”

“The truth? I can understand why that would seem strange to you.”

“Tasha,” Sarah’s mam protested. “Tony-“

“Says _you_ , Romanova-talk about the vat calling the cauldron corrupt, honestly.”

“Do you even hear the words that come out of your mouth?”

Sarah sank down in Bucky’s arms and tried to disappear into the warm folds of his cloak. Tony was just trying to help, she knew, and her mam was worried, and Tasha only ever wanted to help Bucky, but in that moment she wished they could have left them all locked outside in the classroom.

“Shut up,” he ordered suddenly; the others fell silent so swiftly that Sarah wondered if Bucky had managed to cast _silencio_ without his wand. “All of you, just stop. You’re upsetting her, and each other, and _we don’t have time for this_.”

Tony looked like he had swallowed a whole pickled newt, but he sat down on the bench Bucky had magicked over without even complaining. Sarah swallowed a giggle, trying to look serious like Bucky; her mam laughed softly as she took the stool that had appeared next to the big chair. One of her cool hands found Sarah’s cheek as the other brushed Bucky’s shoulder.

“There you are, sweetheart.”

For a second, Sarah wondered what her mam would say if she asked whether she had been talking to Sarah or Bucky. It would have been the wrong question for right then, though, especially with Tasha and Tony right there with them, so she just nodded and then craned her neck to look at Tasha too. She was the only one still standing, leaning against the supply cupboard. Sarah supposed she was the only one who hadn’t been shouting, either.

“They’re wrong, Tasha. He won’t, he promised.”

Tasha smiled, just a little. “I should have known he would.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said emphatically. Tony still looked worried, though- he was glancing from Bucky to Tasha to Sarah’s mam like they were a problem he couldn’t solve- and she’d seen Tony doing maths often enough to know that there weren’t a lot of problems he couldn’t solve.

“Is it even safe for you to be here?”

He glared at Tasha when she opened her mouth. “For him, I meant, okay? Calm down, Romanova, honestly.”

She glared, mean as anything, but didn’t say anything else. Bucky actually laughed.

“Of course it’s safe. He sent me here himself after you tripped every ward I’ve ever set on this place.”

Sarah frowned- Bucky shouldn’t have to ask permission to come home.

“Who’s _he_? Is it the headmaster?”

Bucky’s hand found its way back into Sarah’s hair.

“You know the people I have to work for when I’m not here?”

“Hold on,” Tony protested; this time, Sarah’s mam seemed to agree.

“Bucky, listen.”

Sarah glowered at both of them.

“What? Why shouldn’t he tell me? Everyone else knows.”

“Young Sarah makes a good point,” a new voice announced. Sarah turned as the others stiffened in response to the headmaster’s arrival. Fury looked quite friendly, for him. His eyes lingered on Bucky’s hands, crossed protectively over Sarah like he thought the headmaster might try to snatch her away. “I think it may be time we talked about a plan of action.”


	15. bait and switch

Sarah was still trembling bodily, one of her hands fisted in her father’s robes to keep him close, but as Fury finished speaking she lifted her chin and scowled just like her mother.

“He doesn’t need _your_ stupid plan.”

She turned back to Bucky before anyone else could react. “Why d’you have to do what he says? He never tells anyone else they have to go away when they don’t want to.”

That wasn’t quite accurate, but for the first time in almost twenty years Bucky wasn’t sure he had an answer as to his own obedience.

“You know what?”

He stood up with his daughter still in his arms- Sarah breathed in sharply, surprised, but locked her legs about his waist and put her arms around his neck with the perfect trust that always shook him to his core.  “Maybe I don’t.”

Steph rose with them, cautious but determined.

“James,” the headmaster began, but maybe Bucky _had_ been in the vipers’ nest too long- Fury’s soft, appealing tone only set his teeth on edge. “You can’t seriously mean to-”

“What, take my girls somewhere they won’t feel like they have to volunteer to be killed for our convenience?”

His voice shook with the kind of rage better expressed in a curse that would last several generations; Bucky touched his lips to Sarah’s hair so she’d understand that no part of his anger was to do with her. Stephanie’s fingers brushed his side in quiet solidarity- and of course Stark’s narrowed eyes followed the motion.

“They’re not technically _your_ girls,” he drawled, but it had been a mistake to assume that he’d be safe as long as Bucky had his arms full. Tasha’s wand pressed against his neck like a switchblade.

“Say another word,” she hissed. Carter hovered nervously between them, her own wand already in hand too.

“Natasha, please.”

 Tasha’s eyes narrowed.

“Of course- by all means defend your little lions from the wicked snake.”

Fury’s expression turned reproachful, but he ignored the others to keep his eyes on Bucky.

“Would you really abandon us when-”

“Stop,” Stephanie cut in, barely a breath before Natasha would have had to find a way to divide her wrath _three_ ways. “ _Don’t_ you _dare_ make it sound like any of this can be his fault.”

Silent tears rolled down Sarah’s cheeks as she glanced nervously between her mother, glaring daggers at the headmaster, and her legal guardian, inches away from having his vocal chords transfigured into spider-webs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shrinking back in Bucky’s arms. “I’m sorry, ‘s all my fault.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

Bucky forced himself to smile right through the urge to burn the whole god-damned school to the ground for creating the situation that had put that look on his little girl’s face. “How can any of this be your fault, huh?”

Sarah laid her head on his shoulder, peering up at him forlornly.

“If I weren’t a horcrux you wouldn’t have to go ‘way all the time.”

For a moment Bucky was so choked with anger that he could barely see, let alone speak. His daughter’s eyes welled up again, Sarah apparently taking his silence as confirmation. “’m sorry. I wish I wasn’t, Bucky.”

“Sarah,” he rasped, clearing his throat roughly. “Sarah, honey, you can’t possibly be a horcrux.”

Suddenly the others were all paying attention too, but Bucky kept his eyes locked on his daughter’s. Sarah had raised her head to watch his face, frightened and hopeful and so vulnerable it hurt.

“Can’t I?”

Bucky shook his head, still cradling her against him like a much younger child.  

“We’d know by now, a chailín.”

Sarah’s lip trembled.

“How?”

“Making a horcrux is soul magic, right, so -”

Carter cleared her throat uncomfortably.

“Are you sure this is appropriate?”

It couldn’t be less appropriate than leaving Sarah to try and piece it together on her own, so Bucky ignored the interjection.

“So,” he went on deliberately. “If you were a horcrux you’d have a bit of the other guy’s soul in you, you know? I think you’d have noticed by now if there was someone else talking in your head some of the time.”

Sarah frowned in concentration, closing her eyes as she listened for interlopers.

“I don’t _think_ there’s anyone else in there.”

“Of course there isn’t,” Bucky assured her, cuddling her closer for emphasis. “You’d have all kinds of nightmares, sweetheart- there’s no way you’n your mam wouldn’t have caught on before someone had to tell you.”

His daughter raised a shaky hand to her father’s cheek like she must have seen Steph do at some point along the way.

“You promise?”

He didn’t even have to think about it.

“I promise.”

Their magic lapped around them, binding them closer in acknowledgement of another solemn vow given and fulfilled.

“’s warm,” Sarah murmured, dropping her head back against Bucky’s shoulder. “Why’s it make me tired when you do that?”

Bucky hadn’t known it did, but then his mother had put the fear of god in him _and_ Steph as kids so they’d stayed well clear of promise magic until he was much older than Sarah. They’d have to talk to her about that soon, he realized- and found himself standing suddenly straighter at the thought of looking his daughter in the eye and telling her she was his, and always had been his. Soon, Steph had assured him- soon, when it was done and they could go _home_ at last.

“It’s old magic,” he told Sarah quietly. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ve got you, Sarah-bell.”

“Okay.”

One of her hands clenched over his shoulder. “Don’t go away again without telling me.”

Bucky kissed her cheek.

“I wouldn’t. Sleep, tired thing.”

She smiled, just a little. Bucky closed his own eyes, swaying with his daughter as she drifted off.

“Poor little girl,” he murmured, laying her carefully in his own chair because his arms were beginning to go numb- in point of fact she wasn’t all that little anymore. He cast a warming charm first, and then a cushioning one, enunciating everything clearly both to reassure and reprimand those among his audience who got nervous every time he raised his wand. Tucking it back into his cloak, he turned to share a grin with Stephanie and felt his heart lurch- somehow both rising towards his throat and plummeting to his knees- at her stricken, devastated look.

“Steph? What’s-”

She put her arms around his neck and hung on like her life depended on it. Bucky let his own arms settle at her waist and rocked with her, too. This, he thought, was exactly why he should never have left either of them locked away with the likes of Fury and Stark for company.

“I’m sorry,” Stephanie breathed, barely audible around practically a mouthful of Bucky’s cloak. “Bucky, god, I never thought-“

She raised bloodshot, tearful eyes to gaze at him with a horrible mixture of terror and compassion.

“It’s not Sarah,” she said quietly. “I was there. I get these nightmares-“

Her hands clenched in his robes.

“Except I got nightmares before too, you know? So we thought it was just the same, because you’re out there on your own again and I _hate_ that, but-“

Her lips brushed his cheek, resting momentarily over the raised line of a still-forming scar. “I saw him do that. With _lacero,_ because he thought you were taking too long on that revitalizing draught. He said if you disappointed him again it’d be _sectum sempra_ , and they’d make Tasha do it in case she’d been out of practice.”

He couldn’t feel his hands, Bucky realized in abstract. He wondered if he was having a heart attack, or had already had one.

“Here,” she murmured, ready to press him into his chair and curl up with him like he’d done with Sarah what felt like several lifetimes earlier. “Bucky-”

He kissed her, right on the lips in front of her sham-husband and her mentor and everyone else besides, then turned quicker than she could have been expecting so his wand was trained on the man who’d ruined all their lives without even bothering to keep them up to speed on how, exactly, he was doing it.

“How long have you known?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know! I didn't realise it had been SIX months...  
> many apologies, and thanks to anyone who hasn't given up <3


	16. revelations, or not

“I wouldn’t say we _knew,_ ” Fury demurred, but Bucky had spent too many years at Schmidt’s mercy to care much about semantics. If anything, his icy expression grew colder.

“I don’t care what you call it. I’m asking you _how long_.”

For the first time in years, the headmaster looked genuinely discomfited.

“It did come to mind more immediately than Cliodhna’s geis.”

She hadn’t been expecting that- Steph felt the air leave her lungs in a breathy, rasping protest as Bucky paled beside her.

“You gave me your word.”

His voice was already cracked and trembling. “You _swore_ to me that she’d have your protection.”

Fury spared an apologetic glance in Stephanie’s direction.

“As long as it was in my power to keep her safe, yes.”

That degree of cynical legalism was too much for any of them- Peggy gave a quiet hiss of disapproval as Steph grabbed her husband’s near hand to claim his attention before he made his opinion known using some curse only Tasha had ever seen before.

“Bucky-”

Before she knew it he’d caught her close again, clinging to her like their lives depended on it.

“They can’t have you,” he muttered, shaken but sure. “You’re coming home with me, okay? Both of you. You’d be fine under the-”

“You know I can’t allow that.”

They stiffened together, but Peggy came to their defence before either Bucky or Tasha settled on a suitably vicious jinx.

“Enough,” Steph’s former head of house barked, staring the headmaster down like only she could do. “It’s not all your decision.”

She turned to include both Steph and Bucky in the conversation.

“And it isn’t one we have to make today.”

Fury didn’t seem convinced.  

“You must see that we can’t-”

“I do see that,” Peggy admitted briskly, agreeing without giving the impression of conceding any ground whatsoever. “They see it too. That doesn’t mean they don’t have every right to explore the alternatives.”

She caught Steph’s eye over Bucky’s shoulder, and for a moment Steph felt just like she had at seventeen. She was still nodding gratefully when Bucky seized up around her, his left hand taking a fistful of Steph’s robes with it as it clenched into a fist. Behind them, Tasha gave a choked-off gasp as she turned instinctively towards her best friend.

“James-”

“’m here.”

He turned his head so his lips brushed Steph’s hair. “Guess we gotta go, huh.”

Biting her lip to stifle the protests she already knew would be futile, Steph nuzzled closer to offer what comfort she could while he could afford to take it.

“Right,” Peggy decided; her voice was sharp, and loud enough to make Bucky flinch. “Everyone out.”

The headmaster frowned.

“Peggy-”

“No.”

Her voice would have silenced Merlin himself. “We can give them _this_ much without making one of them bleed for it, can’t we?”

Nick headed for the door without another word. When Tony showed signs of hesitating, Peggy grabbed a handful of his robe and dragged him bodily from the office; the door shut and locked behind her with two neatly cast charms from the wand that hadn’t even left her pocket. Bucky gave a thready chuckle.

“Thank God for your Peggy Carter, huh.”

He pulled away, but unclenched his hand with an effort so he could entwine his fingers carefully with Steph’s as he urged her gently back towards the desk.

“I love this girl, you know that? So much, Stephanie. Even when I thought-”

“Bucky?”   

Sarah stirred as her father’s fingers brushed her cheek- a second later, her eyes were open and her arms were around his neck. “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”

He kissed her hair, patient and devoted in equal measures.

“I’m pretty sure I have to, Sarah-bell.”

She smiled a little at the nickname, but anxiety weighed down her every word.

“Promise you’ll come home after?”

Bucky sighed softly.

“I’ll try, okay?”

“No!”

Her fingers fisted in his robes again. “You gotta promise, like before.”

Tasha’s smile was sympathetic, but also wry. He might as well, Steph thought she must be thinking- if he couldn’t keep that promise he’d be well beyond anyone trying to hold him to his word- but Bucky just bent to kiss his daughter’s forehead one more time.

“I’m sorry, honey. Look after your mam for me, okay?”

Sarah buried her face in his neck.

“Please, can’t you just- _please_?”

He shut his eyes, trapped between his desire to comfort her and his firm intention never to lie to their daughter.

“James,” Natasha murmured, her own voice shot through with pain. She offered Sarah and her father a small, sad smile. “We really have to go, mili moy.”

Sarah glanced between them, suddenly intrigued by a thought she’d never had before.  

“Is he _your_ rúnsearc too?”

Steph choked, taken aback by _that_ word on her daughter’s lips, but Tasha smirked companionably as she stretched out a hand to smooth Sarah’s hair back.

“It’s hardly a secret, is it? I’ll keep an eye on him, all right?”

That was enough, apparently; Sarah smiled at last.

“Thanks,” she murmured, and turned to hug her father one last time. “See? Tasha’ll get you home like always.”

It was all Bucky could do to nod, so Steph stepped in to kiss his cheek before she took their daughter from him. 

“We’ll be here,” she promised, and somehow Bucky found a smile for them before he turned to meet Tasha by the fireplace. Of course Sarah was sobbing by the time the green glow faded from the fireplace, and Steph was dangerously close to joining her.

“Everything all right in here?”

Tony was back, apparently- and jarringly close considering his usual inability to do anything quietly. “I can take her for a second.”

Sarah cringed away from his outstretched arms, her grip on Steph’s shoulders tightening as her legs locked around her mother’s waist.

“I’ve got her,” Steph promised both of them. It wasn’t much, maybe, but that much she had always been able to offer. “She’s just fine with me, isn’t she?”

Sarah relaxed a little, but Tony was still studying them with a peculiar, almost calculating crease in his brow.

“What is it, then?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

He smiled, not exactly kindly. “I’m going to need you both to come with me, please.”

He was edging forward, not quite menacing but apparently determined to back them up against the fireplace with the Floo powder out of reach on Bucky’s desk.

“Tony, what in god’s name are you-”

They saw it at the same time- first the unnatural curve of Tony’s razor-sharp jawline, and then the strange darkening of his eyes.

“Mam,” Sarah breathed, her voice so low that only Steph could hear it. “Mam, he’s-”

She had no choice but to drop her daughter then, tugging Sarah behind her with one hand while the other clenched around her wand as Tony’s features continued to shift and then fade.

“Rumlow.”

That she knew him mostly by reputation- and from a couple of those dreams which had apparently been visions or worse- didn’t make his self-satisfied grin any less heinous.

“Very good, Mrs. Stark. Now.”

Of course he already had his own wand pointed squarely at Steph’s chest. “With me, please, or you may well lose your daughter _and_ your husband before the day is out.”  


	17. betrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is awful. I hate this chapter. bad things happen and I'm not going to take them back. it's at least as violent as the hunger games one too so please proceed or not accordingly.

“James.”

He had stopped, hesitating in front of the fireplace to frown back the way they had come instead of advancing with Natasha towards their next destination. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

He made no move to leave. “Did you think Stark was- a little off, maybe?”

Natasha let the fingers of her free hand brush his arm. She had shared his unease- shared it still- but in their present situation Stark seemed like the least of their worries.

“I’ve been saying that since we were children.”

“So you have.”

There was still such a tenderness in his eyes, even after everything they’d seen. One of the worst of the dementors’ tricks had been a version of James Barnes entirely incapable of that warmth. “Still. Even for him-”

They frowned at each other for a long moment.

“Do you want to go back?”

He shook his head, not altogether convincingly.

“It’s probably nothing.”

It almost never was, with them, and they had not survived as long as they had by doubting their instincts. Natasha smiled, raising her hand to his cheek.

“He was right about one thing, you know- you’re much too good for any of this.”

The tip of her wand bit into his neck before he could react. Of course she knew the spell- it was essentially _her_ spell, adapted at his request from something much more violent in one of her father’s books. Stephanie must have been as gentle as she knew how, nervous and tentative as well as unwilling to hurt her husband of only a few hours. Natasha steeled herself and took it all- both Stephanie and her daughter, and so effectively every peaceful moment James had allowed himself since the first war.

It would save his life, she reminded herself as he shuddered in her grip- if Stark or anyone else _was_ up to something it could save the cause itself. She closed her eyes, ignoring the tears she had failed to suppress, and took every secret shared as well. If they came looking they would find only the years of grief and anger that had been wasted, wasting, waiting. She left him the memory of the yearning in his wife’s eyes, at least, because it seemed more cruel than even she knew how to be to make him believe he’d ever been _that_ alone.

“James,” she said softly, shaking his shoulder once it as over and her wand was tucked away. “Do you want to go back, I said.”

His slackened expression shifted as awareness returned; the change was almost enough to make Natasha give back everything she had taken.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

Even then his eyes were warm, attentive. Sensing her dismay, though presumably he assumed it had been caused by what he now remembered as another ugly showdown with the Gryffindors who had never trusted them and the headmaster they had never liked, James put his arms around Natasha for a moment she wasn’t sure she deserved. “Let’s just finish this, all right? God knows the sooner we’re shot of that dungeon the better for everyone.”

Natasha wasn’t sure even James knew how he meant that with half the nuances of his own life missing; she nodded jerkily, and of course he noticed that right away as well.

“Hey. Are _you_ okay?”

His fingers, warm and precise like they had to be to work his particular kind of magic, traced a tear track she hadn’t quite obliterated.

“I’m sorry,” Tasha breathed. “James, I’m-”

“No. You stop that, right now.”

He kissed her forehead, utterly sincere. “You may be the only person in my life I _don’t_ blame for any of this, Tasha, okay?”

She couldn’t do anything about the tears in her eyes, but took his hand and held it tight as they stepped through the second fireplace- and out into a nightmare Tasha had lived and relived in many forms over the years.

“Stephanie.”

James took a half-step towards the Death Eaters’ captive- still struggling in Rumlow’s death grip- before Strucker forced him roughly to the ground. Of _course_ it had been Rumlow, Natasha thought with a kind of muted triumph. So many things would be easier because of it. At least there were just the few of them- Zemo relieved Natasha of her wand before shoving her unceremoniously to her knees, but otherwise there were far fewer Death Eaters present than Tasha had imagined whenever she had worked through their inevitable exposure. The Red Skull watched her and James with murder in his eyes. She would have one chance, Natasha knew.

“Coward,” she cried before Schmidt would have given any of them leave to speak. She addressed the accusation to Zola, but let her eyes flick towards James for a second before returning to her victim. “Lowborn swine, of course you’d betray us all to save your skin.”

Zola paled, already out of his depths.

“This is nonsense,” he protested, hurrying forward, but Schmidt- as Tasha had intended- was watching James pale as he put together Natasha’s plan.

“Tasha, you _can’t_ -”

“I’m sorry.”

It would haunt him for years, but it _would_ save his life. “I’m so sorry, darling.”

This time, she looked straight at Rumlow before dropping her voice so it was the barest, most defeated whisper.

“They said it would be enough to keep you safe.”

“Tasha,” James broke in again. He couldn’t understand completely, but she hadn’t taken _everything_. “Please, m’lord-”

Strucker silenced him with a cruel hex that left him gagging- but was a good deal more generous than the unforgivables which would have been Zemo’s first impulse _._ The dark lord swept forward, ignoring Rumlow and James to jab his wand in the direction of Natasha’s face. This, then, was the moment she had been working towards since that first day in Azkaban.  

“Show me.”

It was, after all, his favourite party trick- and an effective demonstration of his abilities. Rumlow smirked as James cried out, confused and entreating, but Tasha only closed her eyes and concentrated on a memory she’d cultivated like a beloved child from the first moment she had realized it might one day be enough to keep James out of harm’s way.

_“You could join us,” the Zola of her recollection insisted in his customary whine. “We needn’t tell your… friend about this.”_

_The leer he offered her suggested that he had his suspicions about that. Natasha gave a quiet sob. James would be so disappointed in her, and yet- yet-_

_“I’d have your word that he’ll be protected.”_

_Zola smiled widely._

_“Safe as a child in the womb. That’s what ‘insurance’ is, my dear.”_

The memory ended abruptly- but that happened often enough, even without interference, when one had spent enough time in Azkaban. That much Schmidt knew- but not, perhaps, how real a Dementor’s cruel fantasy could appear, even second-hand, if one only had the stomach to revisit it obsessively until every figure felt as real as flesh and blood. He need never know, either, that she had seen them promising to conceal her betrayal rather than effect a new one, or that every version of that nightmare had ended with James strung up and bleeding, or burning, or-

“He had nothing to do with it,” Natasha whispered through a nauseous haze of pain. “You must know he would never-”

Zola’s gasp cut her off- of course Schmidt would seek their confirmation. She only had the one chance.

“ _Obliviate_ ,” Natasha murmured, quietly enough to deny that she had said a word if the Dark Lord did not appreciate her suggestion. "So he would be above suspicion."

Schmidt gripped Natasha by the chin, forcing her to meet his eyes again.

“And yet _you_ kept the memory.”

It hardly mattered if he realised _now_ that she had always had a basic grasp of Occlumency. The tears in Natasha's eyes were real, and all for the white-faced boy who had, apparently, realized all too soon what she was doing.

“I know what some would do to win your love.”

Her meaning was plain- Rumlow had never made a secret of his envy and suspicion, and of course they _were_ mostly Slytherins.

“Please,” James began as Schmidt’s eyes fell on him. Of course he meant to intercede for her, but it was _gloriously_ convincing in terms of what Schmidt would want to hear. “I swear, she never-”

His back arched as Schmidt’s power raked over the coals of his already-assaulted memories. Natasha closed her eyes against the sight of it, but couldn’t completely shut out the sound of the attack. She heard Stephanie cry out before her voice fell away; apparently, the dark lord had noticed too.   

“Dear James,” he murmured, releasing him at last. “How _do_ you choose the women in your life?”

He watched almost tenderly as James struggled for enough control at least to breathe, and Natasha knew she had succeeded.

“He took your oath,” she whispered, reaching out a shaking arm to remind the Red Skull of their tattoos. “You _know_ he can’t betray you.”

The atmosphere was as thick as blood- for a long moment, the only sound was their own ragged breathing.

“The boy is loyal,” Schmidt decided in a low voice. Rumlow took a tiny, probably involuntary step backwards. “I have said before- I will not hear another word against him.”

“My lord, I would never-“

“You were warned,” the Red Skull told him plainly- and then Brock Rumlow was gone in little more than a half-scream choked by a burst of flame. Stephanie cringed, but even as Zemo moved to restrain her kept her eyes fixed on Schmidt’s wand. “As for the traitors-”

Zola was very close to falling on his knees.

“My Lord, I beg you-”

The Dark Lord cast a silencing charm before the creeping chill which would take a good few hours to kill its writhing victim. He hardly spared Zola a second glance before moving to stand over Natasha.

“I really am sorry.”

The strangest thing, perhaps, was how much it sounded like he meant it. “I’ve always enjoyed your fire, Natasha. Do give my regards to your father.”

She knew what that meant- Natasha found herself laughing, high and halting, as Zemo moved away to keep her blood off his violet robes. “The fall of the Romanovs, is that it?”

She was still giggling to herself, a gurgling, bloody affair, when James breathed her name in supplication.

“Please, just let me-”

“It’s more than she deserves,” Schmidt growled, but the next thing Natasha knew James had lifted her gently into a last embrace.

“Tasha.“

He was still shaking, himself, and looked more lost than she had ever meant to leave him. 

“Shh."

She smiled when he fell silent obediently. "Good boy. Say you forgive me.”

“Of course.”

He kissed her cheek, and then her hair. “Of course, Natalia.”

Natasha wondered if there was more of her blood on him than in her yet.

“Well done,” she murmured, trailing her fingers along his jaw. “Now say you love me, and you’ll always remember me.”

He didn’t, but held her as close as she had ever been held, rocking her gently as he whispered her name in a way that meant that much and more. 

“Survive,” she ordered, closing her eyes because his devastation hurt more than any curse. She might have liked to die with his name on her lips, or even ‘I love you’- but he still had _such_ a fight before him. The rest would have to come later. “You live for _both_ of us now, understand?”

In some ways, he'd been doing that for years already. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, okay? except how can they go two wars without any casualties at all? many many sighs.


	18. reprisal

_He was eleven years old, away from home for the first time and farther from his best friend than he’d ever had to be. Bucky shrank back in a too-big leather armchair, closed his eyes tight and tried to hold on to the sound of the sea._

_“Your name is James.”_

_He opened his eyes to find a tall, auburn-haired girl watching him intently. He remembered her from the sorting ceremony- Natalia Romanova had received a standing ovation from half their house before the hat even touched her head. It had to do with her father, one of the older kids had started to say, but a sharp look from one of the prefects had silenced him before Bucky could decide what to make of that._

_“Yeah,” he offered cautiously. “And?”_

_“That girl on the train—“_

_“Steph.”_

_She was fine, he reminded himself- they’d be playing Exploding Snap or arguing about Quidditch by then. They must have windows, at least, way up in their tower- tomorrow he would ask her if she could see the lake, maybe, from hers. “Stephanie Rogers.”_

_“Stephanie, then. She called you something else.”_

_He smiled at the thought of it- the way she smiled, just for him, when she said his name._

_“She calls me Bucky.”_

_Natalia’s nose wrinkled._

_“I’m going to call you James.”_

_Bucky shrugged- if she had to call him anything it might as well be his name. He thought that would be the end of it, but Natalia moved to sit next to him. “She’s not like you.”_

_He didn’t ask how she knew, or why she cared- he just shook his head, quite fiercely, because that wasn’t the point at all._

_“She’s my home.”_

_He hadn’t been prepared for the way Natalia smiled, restrained but sincere._

_“You’re lucky.”_

_He had nodded, still not sure what she wanted from him, and watched almost nervously as she reached out to pat his arm. “I won’t let them stop you from seeing her.”_

_It honestly hadn’t occurred to him, or to Stephanie, that anyone might try._

“You killed her.”

It seemed impossible- she’d survived her family, that war, _Azkaban-_ but there she lay, her gorgeous hair too bright against so much dark blood, and as the silence fell James felt something deep inside him heave and crack under the weight of that crushing loss. “You _killed_ her.”

The Red Skull nodded soberly, almost regretfully.

“She was a traitor.”  

“She was my family.”

She had loved him- she had _known_ him, in all his weakness, and had loved him anyway. Even after everything- “She was my one good thing.”

“James,” his _Master_ snapped. “That’s enough.”

The static buzzing in his head seemed to have grown too great for his skull to contain.

“I gave you everything I wanted and everything I had, and you-”

“Enough,” Strucker snapped from somewhere behind him. “You're not indispensable, boy.”

“No!”

He saw the flash of green, but could not fully understand what Stephanie had done until she, too, lay unmoving on the ground in front of him.

“Fool,” the Red Skull snarled, and not at him; for the first time, Bucky saw dispassionately, there was a trace of fear behind his arrogance. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I told you.”

It wasn’t his voice- or it was, but not the one he’d used before. “I told you _years ago_ to leave her out of this.”

It was the only thing he’d asked for in fifteen years of horror- and Strucker had nodded with his lord, wittingly or unwittingly accepting the conditions of the oath. The baron seemed to choke- he fell to his knees, clutching at his throat.

“You should have _listened_ ,” Bucky hissed- except it wasn’t a hiss so much as an unholy shriek. It didn’t feel like he was screaming, exactly- more like he _was_ the scream, a passive conduit for the outpouring of fifteen years of rage.

His victim screamed as well, or looked like he did- any noise he might have made was swallowed by the primordial shriek already shaking the clearing itself to its foundations. The others dropped around him, clawing at their faces with their frightened eyes fixed on the Red Skull’s deathly grin.

“Magnificent.”

Apparently the monster still thought he was safe. “Every time I think we’ve seen all you can do you exceed yourself.”

He moved to cup his lackey’s cheek possessively and frowned when James jerked out of reach.

“James-“

“ _You_ promised me. _You’re_ the one who said she would be safe.”

Perhaps the self-proclaimed Dark Lord had not thought a mere half-blood would have the power to collect on such a debt.

“You took my oath,” the Red Skull protested. His expression shifted rapidly between outrage and uncertainty- the combined effect suggested nothing more than a cornered beast. James smiled an awful, cruel smile he must have learnt from Tasha Romanova.

“You took mine first.”

 “Listen to me. James-“

“No.”

If there had ever been a time for talking it was well and truly over now. There was a flash of light- not violent green but blinding white- and then James was alone. The screaming in his head and on his lips was spreading to his limbs. He staggered to his knees and reached blindly for one or both of the women he should have protected. It was done, at least- even Nick Fury could not ask more than this of him. He had longed for oblivion before, but never like this- not when it was so close he could taste it. If he could just give in, let go, then he would be-

“Bucky!”

Her voice was clear and bright, breaking sweet and true over the crash of the waves just beyond his reach. “Bucky, don’t, please-”

And then her arms were around his neck, her little face pressed against his skin.  

“Sarah,” he remembered distantly. But not Sarah Stark, as he had thought- there was no German line on earth that could protect her from the wrath of the aos sí. His mind, already splintering, rebelled- surely, surely, he would remember- but there was no denying that his magic knew its own. She had been protected- or had not needed protecting- and there could be no other explanation. “My Sarah.”

She nodded like she had always known it.

“I c’n be a good thing, right? If you want, maybe. Just please-“

Her small hands fisted in his robes like she scarcely cared that they were slick with blood. “Please don’t go’way again, Buck.”

The sob she failed to suppress cut through his last ties to the world beyond their reach. James nodded slowly, gathering his daughter to his chest as he rose on unexpectedly steady legs.

“I’d never leave you on your own.”

She clung to him like a lifeline he had not imagined he still had the strength to be. “I’m going to keep you safe, all right?”

“’Course.”

Her voice was utterly sure. “Me too, okay?”

He had no choice, then, but to kiss her forehead and press her closer still.

“You’re as brave as your mother.”

Her smile silenced the last echoes of the scream that had come so close to choking him completely. James took a moment to stroke his daughter’s sun-streaked hair before he closed his eyes, gathering his magic around him like a cloak.

“Barnes.”

His shoulders tensed at the sound of that long-resented voice. His daughter raised her head, alarmed- the last time she had heard Stark’s voice it had been Rumlow prepared to spring the trap that had cost them Natasha’s life. James opened his eyes, prepared to promise death or worse than death- but all thoughts of reprisal vanished in a heartbeat as Stephanie, safe in her supposed husband's care, reached out a hand to her true family.

“Steph.”

“C’mere, a rún.”

“See,” their daughter murmured, still holding onto him with all her might. “I _told_ you it was gonna be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is basically the same from Steph's point of view, will hopefully fill the present gaps


	19. Clíodhna's vow

“No!”

Stephanie threw herself at her captor, knowing only that she _could not_ let Strucker’s curse find its target. Green light flooded her field of vision for the second time in her life- and for the second time she opened her eyes, breathing hard, on the other side of the killing curse. She was still on her feet, apparently still in the clearing where Bucky was frozen in place between the bodies of the two women he had loved most in the world- but instead of the commotion she’d left behind Steph heard only the soft susurration of gentle waves lapping against a shore she couldn’t see. “What-“

“Rest, a chailín. It’s in his hands now.”

Steph had known that voice all her life.  

“Auntí?”

The woman making her way over looked a lot like Bucky’s mam, but her smile was more serene than Winifred Barnes had ever been in her too-short life.

“If you like.”

“Clíodhna,” Stephanie realised breathlessly; the lady confirmed it with a gracious nod. “Then this is- am I-?”

“Not yet.”

It wasn’t as reassuring as she would have expected- not when Bucky was still going rigid with grief on the other side of whatever it was that separated them.

“He thinks I am, though.”

It was too soon- he’d only _just_ lost his Tasha, and of course he’d blame himself-

“It is as well,” the ancient guardian murmured, unperturbed by her ward’s torment. “He has our power now.”

Steph had no idea what to make of that until James turned on Strucker with murder in his eyes.

“I told you.”

His voice was deceptively calm- the sea before a storm. “I told you _years ago_ to leave her out of this.”

Of course his mother had made sure they knew the old stories about the banshee’s scream; like so much else about the aos sídhe, the real thing bore little resemblance to the myths.  

“You should have listened,” Bucky growled, not even very loudly, and a whole clutch of the most powerful men of their generation collapsed with a cry that was swallowed by the one that felled them.   

“Oh no,” Steph breathed; as she looked on helplessly, Sarah broke free of the Death Eater whose vice-grip on her had slackened under her father’s onslaught. She was her mother’s daughter, Peggy liked to say; Steph knew there was only one place she would have headed in her daughter’s place. If she got in Schmidt’s way Steph wasn’t sure any of them would survive the fallout. “Sarah, Christ-“

But then Bucky’s expression hardened, his unseeing eyes going somehow colder still- and then it was over in a blinding wash of white. The Red Skull’s last reaction was one of abject fear.

Steph had assumed the scream would stop once her husband had claimed what the geis said he was owed. Instead he fell gracelessly, still in its grip, and showed no sign of rising.  

“It’s too much,” Steph protested hotly. It had been too much for years already- she should have hexed Nick Fury the first time he had mentioned his god-forsaken plan and stolen her poor _good_ James away to Ireland before anyone could think of using him so cruelly. “It’s hurting him, he can’t-“

“Bucky!”

Sarah threw herself at him like she had never doubted her welcome, gasping half-coherent pleas into her father’s shoulder as Bucky watched her with utter bewilderment on his face.

“Sarah,” he murmured, trying it out like a half-forgotten thought. “My Sarah.”  

“Clever girl,” Steph rasped around the lump in her throat. The crushing weight on her chest seemed to lessen by degrees as Bucky found the strength to stand with his daughter still safe in his arms. “My good, sweet, _clever_ girl.”

“They will take care of each other.”

Clíodhna’s smile was encouraging. “You have more than earned your rest.”

It took a moment for her implication to set in.

“No!”

Steph jerked away- as if she had the slightest chance of fighting off an ancient guardian if Clíodhna’s mind was made up. “No, please. She’s so little still, and he’s-“

She gestured helplessly, not knowing how to describe it. Whatever Tasha had done had saved his life, Steph understood, but she shuddered to think about the kind of life it would be if _Nick Fury_ was in charge of helping him go on afterwards.

“Of course I have to go back. He’ll need me more than she does.”  

The lady looked curious more than sceptical.

“And if he thinks otherwise?”

He wouldn’t, though- in all the time they’d been apart Steph was sure neither one of them had ever considered a future in which they both survived and did not choose to be together. And yet-

“I’ll make sure it’s his choice,” she insisted. “Whatever he wants I’ll make damn sure he never has to trade for any of it again.”

The lady of the mound held her gaze for a long moment. When she smiled this time, it made her look _just_ like Bucky’s mam.  

“You have always been worthy, Stephanie Rogers.”

She could have reacted with awe; certainly she felt more gratitude than she knew how to express. Instead, Steph lifted her chin with a defiant kind of grin.

“Stephanie _Barnes_.”

“Of course.”

Cool lips brushed her forehead. “Look after my boy.”

She felt a sharp, stinging pain right between her eyes- which opened, abruptly, to the disorienting sight of Peggy Carter standing over her like a lioness rampant while Tony held her close.  

Apparently the cavalry had arrived while Steph had been distracted by her daughter’s movements. Fury stood apart from the others, surveying the field like a general who knew had won already. As Steph followed his gaze she became aware of Bruce and some others- his werewolf allies, she thought- rounding up the frightened, leaderless remnants of Schmidt’s once-powerful enclave. It wasn’t all of Schmidt’s allies, of course, but in all likelihood they were the most influential survivors who weren’t already in Azkaban. She was still gazing around her, trying to get her bearings, when Tony first pressed her wand back into her hand.

“One day you’re going to have to tell me how the hell you keep doing that,” he muttered, but raised his voice before Steph could think of answering. “Barnes!”

Her husband turned, his eyes still blazing with that inhuman power. For a moment even Steph tensed- but then he caught her eye and even the air around them seemed to seize.

“Steph.”

It was the merest whisper, but cut through the surrounding chaos like the crack of a whip. Steph’s hand trembled as she reached out.

“C’mere, a rún.”

“See,” her daughter told him softly, petting his neck reassuringly. “I _told_ you it was gonna be okay.”

Steph decided they were taking too long to get to her; with just a little help from Tony she scrambled to her feet and went to meet them. When she stumbled, her husband- who still didn’t know he _was_ her husband- hooked an arm around her waist to steady her.  

“It is, you know. God alone knows how.”  

His voice was wry, the look in his eyes both hopeful and faintly bewildered. Steph wanted nothing more than to kiss him soundly, but her promise from earlier echoed in her head. When they got there- if they got there- it had to be his choice.

“I’ll show you,” she offered instead. “As soon as you’re ready I’ll show you anything you want, I-“

Bucky pulled away, disturbed.

“Don’t.”

“I don’t have to.”

She risked a smile at that. “I promised this much years ago, sweetheart.”

He didn’t seem to know how to take that.

“Later,” Steph murmured, leaning in close as her daughter glanced between them with something like satisfaction on her face. "Let’s get you home, okay?”  

Bucky glanced away, then back to Steph.

“I have to- I mean, I can’t just-“

“Let me worry about that.”

None of them had seen Clint arrive; he kissed Sarah’s cheek in greeting, making her smile, without looking away from her father. “Just on this side, so you can go with these girls. When you’re ready we’ll do the rest of it like she would have wanted.”  

They were talking about Tasha, Steph realised belatedly; she watched in helpless sympathy as Bucky struggled with himself. Of course it should be him- but on the other hand he was still trembling from the strain of everything he’d already had to endure, and the daughter he hardly knew was winding herself around him like a particularly anxious vine at the suggestion that he was even thinking about leaving her side. As far as Steph knew he didn’t even have his wand back yet.

“Clint can do it,” Sarah whispered, not especially concerned with what ‘it’ was. “Please, Bucky.”

He sighed, very quietly.

“You won’t let them leave her on her own.”

“I'll give you my word if you want.”

Bucky’s lips turned up, just slightly, as he shook his head.

“She trusted you.”

Clint nodded, still holding Bucky’s gaze, then cleared his throat roughly.   

“I’ve got this,” he said stoutly, not that anyone doubted it, then found a smile for Steph and her daughter. “You gonna take this guy away for a bit or what?”

“I’d feel better if you came back to the school,” Nick Fury interjected, striding towards them like a man on a mission. “We have a lot to discuss.”

Sarah was the first to speak.  

“No one cares what _you_ want. Bucky wants to go home, he said.”

Her voice was sharp and sure, but she turned to her father with pleading eyes, her lip already trembling. “He can’t tell you no, you already did every stupid thing he wanted.”

Bucky smiled quite warmly.

“I did, you know.”

He caught Steph’s eye again, asking for confirmation; she gave it by tucking her wand into his hand.

“Let's go.”

“James,” the headmaster tried again, more severely this time. “The horcrux-“

Bucky set Sarah on her feet and rounded on Fury in one swift movement. 

“I did your dirty work for _twelve years_. I did _everything_ you asked me to, no matter what we had to give up for it, and when it mattered you did _nothing_ to keep either one of my girls safe.” 

“You must understand-”

“I think _you_ need to understand that _I’m done here.”_

His voice was no gentler than when he’d been staring Schmidt down for the final time. “They’re under _my_ protection now.”

Fury regarded them mournfully. It would have been convincing- it _had_ been convincing, when they were half their present age.

“If that’s what you feel is best.”

It wasn’t quite a threat.

“You gave me your word too,” Bucky reminded the headmaster softly. “I’d say it’s _in your power_ to keep it, now, or not.”

He never even waited for the headmaster to acknowledge him, but turned back to Steph with his free hand extended. She took it gratefully, tucking Sarah close between them and grinning when her daughter put both arms around Bucky’s waist at once. Steph's husband met her eyes calmly, expression grave.

“Is this really what you want?”

Steph found herself laughing a touch hysterically.  

“Only my whole life, J.”

He smiled then- really smiled, like her own Bucky from before the war- and raised her wand without comment.

**Author's Note:**

> title from WB Yeats, Who Goes with Fergus


End file.
